Dev movie review: Karthi-Rakul starrer is dry, predictable and unengaging
CAST: Karthi, Rakul Preet Singh, Prakash Raj, Ramya Krishnan
DIRECTION: Rajat Ravishankar
Dev has everything – a handsome hero, pretty heroine, glossy visuals, exotic locales, breezy songs, thrilling action blocks, good production values. All this technicality is sidelined due to a very weak plot, a wafer-thin story, and overall a dry screenplay. Debutant director Rajath struggles to translate his vision on to the screen. The only saving grace is Karthi.
Dev Ramalingam (Karthi) scion of an affluent business family is a happy go lucky guy with no responsibilities entrusted on him. He is an adventure junky and loves to explore new places and experience new things, hang-around with his childhood friends (Amrutha and Vigneshkanth) and for him making money is secondary. On his friends’ insistence, he is forced to undergo yet another journey called ‘romance’. A random friend request on Facebook lands him with Meghna Padmavathy (Rakul Preet), a multimillionaire heading an IT company based in San Francisco. She is headstrong, opinionated and has worked hard to reach where she is. She does not believe in men as her father left her mom (Ramya Krishanan) when she was a kid.
However, after Dev’s constant stalking of her, Meghna also is attracted to him. The rest is the love story of these two diversified characters and the challenges they face.
Though Karthi looks cool in an urbane stylish role and earnest as Dev, one wonders how the actor who diligently chooses his scripts agreed in the first place to Dev. Perhaps, what looked awesome on paper could not be translated on to the screen? Sadly, there’s no novelty in Rakul’s character although she shares equal screen space with Karthi. She tries her level best to put up a decent show. Ramya Krishnan and Prakash Raj have been wasted in insignificant roles. In a visual medium, why does someone have to tell the audience about the character arc of the lead protagonist? In this case, VJ Vigneshkanth whose screen time exceeds that of Karthi, narrates the whole story as part of his standup (!) comedy show. He even gets a chance to take a gig alongside of the lead pair in one of the romantic songs that was captured somewhere abroad.
The movie ends once the adventurous Dev and corporate honcho fall for each other. Unfortunately, there’s nothing beyond this, and it is apparent that the director struggles to move the story forward and infusing a forced conflict between the lovers. Meghna quarrels with Dev for silly and illogical reasons. The flimsy plot is also predictable.
Songs, though reminding us of Harris Jayaraj’s earlier hits, are thankfully shot in an aesthetic manner by Velraj. Stunt sequences by Anbarivu are fresh, but they add no value to the story. The film drags endlessly and clocking at more than 158 minutes, minor edits just won’t cut it.
