We love a good Bollywood masala film, don’t we? When action, emotion, solid punchlines, and the right actors come together on screen, an Indian audience always rewards filmmakers. That was perhaps the hope director Rosshan Andrrews and producer Siddharth Roy Kapur had from Deva. But Shahid Kapoor’s latest film is 2 hours and 30 minutes of lost potential. And well-sculpted, popping muscles, of course. Here’s our review of Deva, starring Pooja Hegde, Pravessh Rana, Kubbra Sait, and Pavail Gulatie, with Shahid Kapoor essaying the titular character.

A criminal waste of talent

Dev Ambre, played by Shahid Kapoor, feels like Kabir Singh in an alternate universe. In this cop avatar, however, Shahid Kapoor is a misfit. The lack of screen presence is painfully obvious from the very beginning. The cigarette dangling from his mouth and the shirts that are two sizes too small bear the weight of the character here. Because the actor shows not even half the talent we know he has. A loud, mostly shallow cop character did not warrant casting an actor like Shahid Kapoor.

The women, as expected, are relegated to the sidelines once again. Even though the female lead, Diya, played by Pooja Hegde, had a solid backstory, she just disappears from the film after a song-and-dance and a few filler scenes. Even in 2025, a female lead in a commercial action film is only meant to support the abrasive hero “jiske andar ek bachcha hai”. Deva also stars Kubbra Sait but we won’t blame you for not noticing her in the film. The female actors of Deva are so underutilised that it makes you wonder why they agreed to be a part of this chaos.

shahid kapoor pooja hegde
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Deva movie review: A story with potential loses out to predictable plot twists

It’s not easy to make a film that appeals to the masses. A film like Deva needs to hit the right notes for most of the runtime. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t. In fact, the majority of the film feels like a build-up to a build-up. Nothing really happens that you don’t see coming five minutes before it happens, at least in the first half. The second half of the film begins with much more promise than the first, but ultimately, it fizzles out.

The climax of Deva will hold your attention for a hot minute and you will see glimpses of raw talent in Shahid Kapoor and Pavail Gulatie. But that’s all it is. A hot minute. The end of Deva could have come together in a beautiful sequence that would’ve made the nearly three hours worth it. But the makers decided Deva needed to be Singham Lite.

Deva is running now in a theatre near you.

Can you watch Deva with family? There are a couple of scenes of intimacy that are short but show up out of the blue. Deva also features plenty of violence and some gore. So, proceed with caution.

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