Customer Reviews

Dev

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I watch more than 150 films a year. Bollywood has always been limited by the low scope of success of most films.This is why most directors refrain from showing truth the way it is. I have not seen any movie that displays truth in a more realistic way than Dev.Dev is about the muted condition of Hindus and Muslims in India.

What is actually quite interesting about this film is the way many dark characters are portrayed and bought into the film.Fardeen Khan,Kareena Kapoor,Amitabh Bachchan and Om Puri. Four people who I think deliver life time performances.There are no over dramatic songs in this film but it has a lot of action and controlled hatred.It's not a film for short attention span dullheads. It's a very controversial film which most of the movie watchers found difficult to stomach.I fail to understand why a film of this regard didnt raise eyebrows of appreciation among the box office collections.

I cannot possibly try and comprehend and explain to all reading this the kind of unimaginable fury of both deep hatred and disgust this generated in me. I have never felt more disgraced and shameful for belonging to this society that I do. The friendship between Om Puri and Amitabh Bachchan is the strongest thing about this film.It's also moulded in a lot of ways.

There are many scenes in this film that made me go weak with a feeling of absolute overwhelming chaos.I dont think I can compare this movie with any other.Bombay was similar but limited due to the love angle.

Watch this if you can stomach it.To me it stands in all of its absolution as the best film of it's kind.

Disquieting,Inspiring,Aggrevating "Dev"

DevI enjoyed this movie very much. The two main characters were excellent. Opposites ( Muslin & Hindu) Some basic conflicts were to be expected when religious is strongly interjected. But one has to truly look further and deeper on both sides to see the connectedness. The change in their hearts to some degree both of them because of circumstances and events. We all can learn and be more tolerant of each other. No one group, religion/tradition is better we just have to understand differences and just be. Beig different is what makes life interesting I certainly believe.

There is violence in India. There is violence in Indian film.

too frequently...another person walks through the room while a movie is playing
when Indians are beating up on each other..
"is that the same movie?"..."no a different one..")

domestic violence, violence against women, inter-caste violence,
gang violence, police and army actions, communal violence,
Hindu, Muslim, Sikh.

This is not an action film, or a gratuitous display. It is a shaped dramatic exposition of being Muslim in India, political and policing affairs, and the evolution of the characters in this cauldron of conflict, It is difficult to get through.

This is fiction with a considerable amount of dramatic content, although one's shock at viewing it blunts the ability to respond to it. I had to watch the film twice and see the culmination of the riot scene to appreciate Kareena Kapoor's contribution to the film.

You will come to appreciate the grim repeat of Fardeen Khan's Gandhian father's experience in the course of events that Kareena is forced into.

The second aspect of the film is the story of JPLieutenant DEV Pratap Singh, Amitabh Bachchan, and his Hindu political supervisor Tejendra Khoshla, Om Puri. There is more violence, as though paper-mache political masochism on screen, calculated and convoluted, lacking a sense of contact with reality- but again, perhaps the haze of shock, disbelief.

Bachchan's part is a grim brother to his other-sided ego displayed in Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999 Hindi Film / Bollywood Movie / Indian Cinema DVD)" (see my review) from some years back, both supporting his identity with the audience as the UN-OFFICIAL SPOKESPERSON FOR INDIA.

Om Puri has never seen a more degraded character role in his career. What happened to his heroic Abu Mian in Ketan Mehta's "Mirch Masala" where he defends the abandoned wife against the evil subedar? (What happened to THOSE movietimes??)

This movie attempts to be about India today, not just violence. We don't have movies like this in America much. That's why I watch these Indian movies, the freedom still of the Indian movie business to portray and display...as such.

For a foil to Fardeen's "Gandhi is dead" political stance, see Anupam Kher in Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (Hindi Film / Bollywood Movie / Indian Cinema DVD) ("I did not kill Gandhi.")