Karthi’s ‘Dev’ ends up being a tiring watch. Karthi has tried hard to look convincing as Dev and carries the film entirely on his shoulder.
Debutant Rajath Ravi Shankar‘s Dev has romance, adventure, friendship, good looking people and lovely locations which may have looked good on paper, but goes awry due to convoluted screenplay, flawed characters and a dull romance. You feel nothing for the film’s characters because you cannot understand why they behave the way they do.The film goes for over-the- top emotions, and basically chooses loudness over subtlety.Born with a silver spoon, Dev (Karthi) is an adventure lover who believes that life is not about earning money, as he does nothing but travels all over the world and experience new things. His two childhood friends (Amrutha and Vigneshkanth) push him into another adventure called “Love” and encourage him to fall in love with multi-millionaire businesswoman Meghna Padmavathy (Rakul Preet Singh) who is completely in contrast to him.
Meghna doesn’t like men as her dad left the family when she was a kid and broke the trust of her mom Padmavathy (Ramya Krishnan). For Meghna, life is all about earning money and she doesn’t want to be in any relationship. Now, how Dev and Meghna who are like chalk and cheese fall in love with each other? Can these diametrically opposite people lead a happy life? Watch the film to know more…
Karthi has tried hard to look convincing as Dev and carries the film entirely on his shoulder. Prakash Raj and Ramya Krishnan are reduced to mere sidekicks to show up at regular intervals to utter some cliched lines. Rakul disappoints here with unnecessary over-acting in a thankless role, Her classy western wear and wardrobe looks more dedicated than her performance. RJ Vigneshkanth and his comedy is annoying while we wonder why Nikki Galrani made that embarrassing cameo?
The biggest success of any romantic movie is that it should make you smile, cry and yes, believe in true love ..But in Dev the director was more interested to show that our hero has a fleet of swanky cars and dozens of souped up bikes. The heroine on the other hand travels in a private jet. There is no parental opposition and the reason for them to separate looks downright silly and melodramatic. The stunt scenes and songs look trusted and does not go with the flow.
The biggest drawback of the film is the editing by Ruben as the scenes involving the friends in the first half, the stand-up comedy scene and the little girl at the hospital urging the hero to go to Mount Everest and the climax atop the snow capped mountains looks pointless and could have been trimmed to make the film crisp. At 158 minutes Dev turns out to be a tiring watch.
Technically, Velraj’ s scintillating grand visuals capturing exotic locales and is a treat to our eyes. Harris Jayaraj’s songs are repetitive and often comes as speed breakers. Overall, Dev is way too predictable to ever surprise you!
Dev review: 3/5
