Amitabh Bachchan is Dev,
a man who chose to walk the razor's edge. Pity this Govind Nihalani-directed
film doesn't cut deep. But from a public perspective, Dev is an important, well-meaning film.
Nihalani uses Mumbai as a metaphorical venue of the 2001 Gujarat riots.
Which in CM Narendra Modi’s heinous perception was a “secular
reaction” to the carnage at Godhra. The Sabarmati Express impetus, in
Nihalani’s interpretation, is a bomb attack outside a crowded Hindu
temple.
In short, the film deals with 'formulaic' subjects like Hindu-Muslim friction, communal violence,
preachy jingoism, and the police and the political system.
From a personal perspective, however, the importance of the subject
alone does not translate to fulsome, consuming cinema.
Here's the plot outline: Bachchan is Joint Police Commissioner Dev Pratap Singh, who
believes in serving and protecting the interests of the nation above
all else. He is suspected of harbouring unpleasant feelings towards
his 'minority' (read: Muslim) brethren. But nothing could be further
from the truth, even though his only son, aged 5, was a victim of a
Muslim bullet (if there was one!) and 'they' have made more than one
attempt on his life and that of his wife, Dr Bharati (Rati Agnihotri).
But he is pigeonholed as a 'Muslim-hater', and Muslim politician and terrorist supporter Latif (Ehsaan Khan)
perpetuates the stereotype for his own selfish ends.
At one level, Nihalani betrays realism with some caricatured
characters (an opportunist-fundamentalist pitted against a
fundamentalist turned Gandhian) and implausible constructions, like
two Joint Commissioners of Police arguing outside a building getting
set on fire with locked residents inside.
Or the same two officers with immediate access to the state CM (Amrish
Puri) taking direct orders, while the Commissioner of Police or other
limbs of bureaucracy are nowhere in sight.
The only silver lining on the front are the excellently picturised
riot shots reminiscent of Tamas (1986).
At another level, Dev betrays high-voltage action through unduly
simplified, overtly verbose living-room debates penned with ink dipped
in mediocrity. So, it trades subtlety for high rhetoric and loud melodrama.
Yet it exchanges action for more thought. The result is neither an
excellent, wordy drama like Party (1984), nor an exhilarating cop
spectacle like Raj Kumar Santoshi’s recent Khakee.
Seemingly the point of this picture is the ideological divide between
an upright, efficient senior cop (Bachchan) and his morally corrupt
colleague for “30 years” (Om Puri).
It is Puri’s half-baked top-cop Tejinder Khosla who comes across as
most interesting. For the reason for his ethically bent temperament is
not just political subservience – as it turns out — but blind hatred
for the entire minority community.
An attempt to explain this bureaucrat’s disposition — his background
that is never touched upon — could’ve been an attempt to explain
“modern day ‘Neros’ who looked elsewhere when innocent children and
helpless women were being burnt”. It could have been the central theme
of the film.
All else that is explored here has been explored before in mainstream
cinema: Honest police officer in a politically vitiated system
(standard cop tale) or mechanics of a communal riot (Mani Ratnam’s
Bombay).
Also, genesis of ‘jehad’ examined here through a young Farhan (Fardeen
Khan — a vegetable in this heavy meal), and Hindu-Muslim extremism
being a hand-and-glove operation, were the crux of Khalid Mohamed’s
Fiza.
Unexpectedly, the shining case of an understated and effective show in
this over-boiled egg is Kareena Kapoor — a role modeled on Zahira
Sheikh, key eyewitness in Vadodara’s Best Bakery case — played to
perfection.
Both Bachchan and Puri hardly raise their respective high-performance
bars, but for a couple of scenes — for instance, towards the end when
a moist-eyed Dev (Bachchan) drops his head to lament the “stench in
the system.”
More of these moments would’ve made this movie. It is this exploding
angst in a political film that jolts a viewer off his rockers, as it
did through Om Puri’s helpless protagonist in Aakrosh (1980).
All said and done, Dev is not a bad film. Even with the minuses of storyline, a
rather vague ending, and its duration, the performances of the lead
actors are compensation enough, making it worth a watch.
Rating: * *
CREDITS: Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Om Puri, Fardeen Khan,
Kareena Kapoor, Rati Agnihotri, Ehsaan Khan, Milind Gunaji Director: Govind Nihalani Producer: Entertainment One, Aditya Birla Group Music: Aadesh Shrivastava Lyrics: Nida Fazli
Rating
Index: * * * * * Just brilliant * * * * A cut above * * * Enjoyable * * Average * Bomb
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Amitabh Bachchan is Dev,
a man who chose to walk the razor's edge. Pity this Govind Nihalani-directed
film doesn't cut deep. But from a public perspective, Dev is an important, well-meaning film.
Nihalani uses Mumbai as a metaphorical venue of the 2001 Gujarat riots. 
But he is pigeonholed as a 'Muslim-hater', and Muslim politician and terrorist supporter Latif (Ehsaan Khan)
perpetuates the stereotype for his own selfish ends.
Seemingly the point of this picture is the ideological divide between
an upright, efficient senior cop (Bachchan) and his morally corrupt
colleague for “30 years” (Om Puri). 
Both Bachchan and Puri hardly raise their respective high-performance
bars, but for a couple of scenes — for instance, towards the end when
a moist-eyed Dev (Bachchan) drops his head to lament the “stench in
the system.” 