Dev Ambre, a no-nonsense fiery cop, meets with an accident while nearly cracking a high-profile investigation involving a fellow officer and a dear friend Rohan. After a partial memory loss, he returns to work and is asked to piece together crucial details around the case. He needs to come to terms with himself and his problematic past to find answers. Where does this quest lead him?

When the lead hero, Shahid Kapoor, talks of the relevance of ‘Deewar’, should we pay attention to the subtext? Indeed, ‘Deva’, like many of Amitabh Bachchan’s films as the angry young man, is about a man seething and bristling from within. His fractured relationship with his father (not seen in the film though) too is an important leitmotif. Clearly, the ‘Deewar’ connect is not restricted to Bachchan’s huge cutout alone. But before we touch base with Deva’s vulnerabilities, Shahid Kapoor in the titular part emerges as a heroic figure. He bashes before he speaks, smokes like a chimney, drinks while on duty; in short, he is the quintessential bad good guy. The Kabir Singh syndrome manifests and persists in this police avatar.

There are flawed protagonists. And then there are problematic men masquerading as heroes. Dev Ambre aka Deva belongs to the latter category. Deva is a trigger-happy Mumbai cop whose designation is disproportionate to the body count he has notched up. Deva has severe anger issues, conveniently notched down to him being a rebel. He doesn’t think twice before sticking the barrel of a gun into the mouth of a woman who is not a criminal by any measure. Dev is a huge proponent of police brutality, but gets away with it every time. No one can say ’no’ to him. For that would mean that person’s body parts could be in real danger of being distanced from his body. When Dev asks his girlfriend Diya (Pooja Hegde) what she likes about him, she replies with: ‘Besides your arrogance, your grumpy face and your huge anger issues, I like the fact that you have a child in you’.

When was the last time the hero in an Indian commercial film was introduced without any fanfare? Deva opens with downbeat credits composed of fractured surveillance images. And then its titular character just appears, riding his bike down a tunnel. No buildup. No flying bodies. No ‘Sparkling Star Shahid Kapoor’. Ten minutes later, Kapoor is, in effect, reintroduced: there are sundry hero shenanigans and a dance number. But the opening is enough to guess that this is a rare contemporary Hindi commercial film whose rhythms aren’t those of Tamil or Telugu cinema. Then again, its hurt, sombre rhythms aren’t classic Bollywood either—despite Dev being positioned before a mural of Deewaar while ‘Main Hoon Don’ plays.

There’s an instruction from Deputy Commissioner of Police Farhan Khan (Pravesh Rana) to junior Dev Ambre (Shahid Kapoor) that goes, “Get answers to three questions: who, how and why.” He is referring to the assassination of ACP Rohan D’silva (Paval Gulati) who was shot dead on an open ground at a Mumbai Police event where he was receiving a gallantry award. The viewer feels like asking the same three questions. Who made this film? A director from Malayalam cinema called Rosshan Andrrews, making his Hindi debut with a remake of his own 2013 film Mumbai Police.

After a long wait, we have a mainstream flick where the hero makes you forget the lapses in the logic of the screenplay as director Rosshan Andrrews mounts his Malayalam blockbuster Mumbai Police for the Hindi heartland, a decade after its release. Among the current crop of Bollywood actors, Shahid Kapoor has the wherewithal to generate the wildfire out of the masala moments that recipes from the South spark. A rare breed in this generation who can be believable and lovable in the high register, Shahid excels in roles rooted in the duality of character. Here he is a ferocious Animal in uniform who slays with style in the first half. Armed with the licence of daddy issues, as Dev, the star flaunts the angst-ridden charm of Kabir Singh and the chutzpah of Haider and mauls everyone who comes in his path for fun.

फिल्म ‘देवा’ का ट्रेलर बताता है कि किसी ने पुलिस के फंक्शन में घुस कर किसी पुलिस वाले को मारा है, अब पुलिस वाला यानी देवा उनके यहां घुस कर उनको मारेगा। जी हां, इस इतना-सा ही ट्रेलर है। दरअसल इस फिल्म को बनाने वालों के पास इससे ज़्यादा बताने लायक कुछ था ही नहीं। चलिए, आगे का हम से सुनिए। फिल्म की शुरुआत दिखाती है कि देवा ने यह केस सुलझा लिया है कि उसके दोस्त पुलिस वाले को किस ने मारा। लेकिन इससे पहले कि वह किसी को कुछ बताए, उसका एक्सिडैंट हो जाता है और उसकी काफी सारी याद्दाश्त चली जाती है। लेकिन वह इस केस पर काम करता रहता है और आखिर पता लगा ही लेता है कि कातिल आखिर कौन है। 2013 में आई अपनी ही बनाई मलयालम फिल्म ‘मुंबई पुलिस’ का 12 साल बाद हिन्दी में रीमेक लेकर आए वहां के निर्देशक रोशन एन्ड्रयूज़ ने मूल फिल्म की कहानी में कुछ एक बदलाव करके कत्ल के एंगल को बदला है जो विश्वसनीय भी लगता है। लेकिन इस फिल्म की हिन्दी में पटकथा लिखने के लिए लेखकों की टीम ने जो मसालेदार हलवा तैयार किया है, उसने जलवा कम बिखेरा है, बलवा ज़्यादा मचाया है। इस फिल्म को देखते हुए पहला अहसास तो यह होता है कि इसे लिखने, बनाने वालों को न तो पुलिस डिपार्टमैंट की गहरी जानकारी है और न ही उनके काम करने के तौर-तरीकों की। अब चूंकि फिल्म लिखनी ही थी तो इन लोगों ने मिल कर अपनी सहूलियत के हिसाब से सीन गढ़े। जहां चाहा फिल्म में आधुनिक गैजेट्स दिखा दिए, जहां चाहा सी.सी.टी.वी. तक गायब करवा दिया। पुलिस वाले कभी बिना बुलैट प्रूफ जैकेट के एनकाऊंटर पर चल दिए तो कभी उन्हें बेसिक समझ से भी पैदल दिखा दिया।