Dev Review: A Passable Movie Where Neither Adventure Nor Love Creates An Impact

Dev has been one of the most expected movies in recent times, mainly due to the hype created by the promos and also because of the timing.

Proclaimed to be a love story with a dash of adventure, Dev is released on Valentine’s Day and that created the rest of the hype.

But it is so sad that Dev pretty much totally failed to live up to the expectations of the audience.

For one, Dev has nothing new as far as the story is concerned. Love is such an overly discussed and seen topic for Tamil Cinema.

CastDirectionGalleryOur Rating

Karthi, Rakul Preet Singh

Rajath Ravishanker

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2.3/5

And if one has to make a movie that places Love in its center, there has to be something novel and something interesting for the audience.

That’s where Dev fails in the first place.

Next comes the screenplay, which could have saved any average storyline.

But in Dev, the screenplay too lets the movie down. There are no twists or surprises and the pace is extremely slow.

Did Karthi expect a Paiya-like story and presentation in Dev when he said yes? We don’t know!

Karthi’s look and a few scenes definitely do resemble Paiya. But that’s about it.

Karthi plays a casual, jolly type guy Dev, who is not very serious about stuff – this role definitely suits him. He is the son of a rich man, Ramalingam (Prakash Raj).

Karthi has a couple of friends who are keen that he falls in love.

Rahul Preet plays Meghna a business woman (CEO) who is keen on succeeding in her career and hence not pretty much interested in love.

Dev decides to start a love relationship with Meghna for a reason that’s not so pressing!

But then eventually he succeeds. Meghna leaves Dev for a not so pressing reason too.

And then whether they finally come together forms the rest of the story.

The movie has a pretty long run time. This combined with a blunt screenplay that moves very slow, makes Dev a painful watch.

Velraj is the only saving grace in the movie (apart from Karthi, of course – who gives his very best no matter what).

Cinematography definitely makes the movie watchable as every frame is fresh, colorful and pleasing to the eyes.

The BGM is a bit too much for the movie’s tone. The songs are catchy but they don’t add strength to the story, and simply appear as speed breakers to an already slow-running movie.

Two powerful actors Prakash Raj and Ramya Krishnan have been comfortably underused. Their characterization lacks impact.

Rahul Preet doesn’t really fit into the quite serious role of a CEO who is keen on succeeding in career. She definitely suits the characters as those played in Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru (an easy going lover girl and a jolly wife) and Spyder (loosu ponnu, lover girl).

Her character in Dev demands maturity and seriousness – though she tries her best, the results are not very convincing.

As we see from the trailer, the movie portrays Dev as someone who loves adventure (“I love adventure” thane un password?).

But the link to adventure in the story is very poorly written so we are not really able to connect with the adventure part.

And though the movie screams “love” all over, we are totally unable to relate to the love (or any other emotion) that’s shown on screen.

Overall, Dev has turned out to be a very average, boring movie despite the hype and the cast. A novel script with an interesting and a fast moving screenplay could have saved it!