Directed by Rosshan Andrrews led by Shahid Kapoor, the action thriller brings back the actor in his action avatar. The music and Shahid’s presence keep the movie going for most of its runtime. The writing in the first half is one of the biggest plus points for the first half but the second half falters taking away the film’s impact, but it doesn’t take away from Shahid’s performance. Deva’s silent hero remains a simplistic dialogue that doesn’t force punchlines but lets the actors put their best foot forward. The film begins with Deva revealing that he has found the killer and the case has been solved but before he can share more information he meets with an accident and loses his memory. Upon waking up he finds out he is a cop who was working on a very important case and now he is the only one who can trace back and find the killer.

A bunch of cops in Mumbai track down the killer of a fellow officer, opening up several cans of worms. That, more or less, was the thrust of the Roshhan Andrrews-directed Mumbai Police (2013), headlined by Prithviraj Sukumaran. Another bunch of cops in Mumbai do the same, broadly, in the 2025 ‘Deva’, also by the same director. From what I remember of the original, there seem to be several scenes which are exact replicas, but for some strange reason, the filmmakers have taken great pains to prevent themselves, as well as anyone else, dubbing the Shahid Kapoor starrer a remake.