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Chitra Parayath 09/08/2004
Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Om Puri, Rati Agnihotri, Kareena Kapoor, Fardeen Khan, Amrish Puri, Ehsaan Khan, Milind Gunaji, Harsh Chhaya
Director: Govind Nihalani
Music: Aadesh Srivastava
Producer: Applause Entertainment, Udbhav Dreamzone
Dev is a film about two cops JCP (Joint Commissioner of Police) Dev Pratap Singh ( Amitabh Bachchan ) and JCP Tejindar Khosla ( Om Puri) their friendship, and a complete difference of ideology about "minorities". While Khosla supports corrupt partisan politics and is not above misusing the law, Dev is astute and will tolerate no corruption – be it in thought or deed!
Fardeen plays Farhan Ali, an engineer from Gujarat who eventually turns into a "part-time" terrorist while Kareena Kapoor plays Aaliya, a simple Muslim girl who is deeply in love with Farhan. Throw in Amrish Puri and Milind Gunaji playing Chief Minister and his sidekick Rao respectively, and some incidents of communal rife into the mix and you have Nihalani’s Dev.
The riot scenes are well captured, long but brutal shots of murder and mayhem are presented in Nihalani’s inimitable style. 'Formulaic' subjects like Hindu-Muslim friction, communal violence, the cop-neta nexus are also captured well but strung together in a rather rough hewn manner. There is scant evidence of narrative skill and one finds it hard to believe that this is from the man who gave us Ardha Satya and Takshak.
Even the denouement pulls no punches. Amitabh, Om puri and the rest act and over-act but fail to save this over blown cinematic explosion.
Music director Adesh Srivatsava pleases with a great musical score, combining two genres, Indian semi-classical and Sufi devotional, he seems to have cut the right balance of the traditional and the modern.
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