The Devil movie review: Darshan vs Darshan in outdated snooze-fest tale of power and love

The Devil movie story: When Chief Minister Rajashekara (Mahesh Manjrekar) is ousted on corruption charges and his power-hungry nephews make a play for the chair, it is up to the trusted right-hand man Anant Nambiar (Achyuth Kumar) to stop this move and set things right. Rajashekara’s son, Dhanush (Darshan) has to return home and take his father’s place in the government. But there’s a problem with that – Dhanush has been kept away from the public eye owing to his immoral ways. He’s rechristened himself Devil and would rather stick to his life of sex, drugs and the occasional murder.

Having helped Rajashekara to stay in power for multiple terms, Nambiar does not back away from this seemingly impossible situation of rebranding Dhanush. He finds a workaround.

The Devil movie review: The Devil is a film that should have, ideally, been a treat for fans of Challenging Star Darshan. There is, after all, just so much of him in the film, playing both hero and villain. This double role stunt, though, is a misfire in director Prakash Veer’s jaded story that’s masked as a political power struggle drama of good vs evil, but is actually all about a girl. Ironic, considering that Darshan is currently in jail because of a girl. I digress.

The Devil is a problematic film – rape and murder are all but normalised and supposedly the trademarks of this ‘hero’ that audiences are meant to root for. Darshan casually throwing a woman that he’s going to sexually assault over his shoulder is a villain trope from the 70s and 80s, that one hoped had died a natural death a few decades ago. But no, it’s apparently what makes this character so cool, apart from his jarring silk shirts.

The women are still objectified – a publicized surprise element is all of 2 minutes, much of which is devoted to a cleavage shot. The leading lady is not spared, but then that’s part of the job description of a commercial film heroine, I guess. Rachana gets a lot of screen time, but it’s mostly for the damsel in distress act and nothing much else.

Also read: Idre Nemdiyaag Irbek: Anirudh Sastry on the choice of lyrics for The Devil’s anthem song

On paper, Prakash’s film has quite an ensemble cast on board, but for 4 – Darshan, Darshan again, Achyuth Kumar and Rachana – the rest barely get a couple of minutes screen time each, some of who remain nameless props. Some of these actors, who've had to headline promotions in Darshan's absence, made sweeping statements that this film will change their career graphs. Like, really? The best guess is that the director wanted to fill up the screen with recognizable faces from TV and cinema, in the hope that they would draw audiences to theatres.

It’s unpardonable that despite a nearly 3-hour run-time, this is the best that Prakash and Darshan could come up with. The much-discussed red and green pills are never addressed. The BGM and songs are unremarkable, as also the stunt choreography. In a day and age when you have young agile heroes performing more realistic but physically taxing action, villains going flying at the slightest touch of Darshan’s outstretched arms or legs or just bouncing off him, as he stands still, is quite ridiculous

The worst bit, though, is the ending. What are you trying to say, Prakash? Is this why most promotional interviews had that line about keeping personal biases aside and seeing The Devil only as a film?

The Devil movie verdict: Darshan vs Darshan is the bait, but is it worth a bite? Would you spend 3 hours on an outdated tale that’s far from entertaining and has absolutely nothing by way of USPs?