Mumbai police It was its climax. Roshan Andrrews’ Semhan Thriller moved towards a bold end that he felt as a look at the future. A turn not only ahead of his time, but one that consolidated the presumption of Malayalam cinema: tell stories that not only develop but fly, where the character is inseparable from the consciousness and narrative of the world that dares to reflect. A conclusion that not only sealed the denotative arch of the film, but opened endless connotative readings. A revelation that Antony (Prithviraj), a police officer who fights with the weight of his hidden sexuality, takes the most dramatic step by killing his own colleague to protect a secret that the world had already taught Temer.
Mumbai police It was the depth on the reflexes
Unlike Thrillers where turns exist simply to surprise, it existed to disarm. And unlike Thrillers in which revelations feel abrupt, imposed or sensational, this was always inevitable; If we had only been watching closely, with the right look. He revealed Antony as a tragic figure, his aggression as a smoke curtain, his violence is an action, a desperate attempt to adjust to the rigid architecture of masculinity. The weight of scrutiny forces an existence dictated by fear. So, like any great thriller, its outcome was molded by a resolution that was not only a conclusion but a consequence. Like any great thriller, it was made with style and spine. And, like any great thriller, he left us with a surplus of technique on tricks, subtextual depth on textual reflexes.
When someone chooses to adapt it, or worse, remake it, it should be obvious that climax is untouchable. The configuration can change, the narrative can be folded, the characters can be remodeled, but that final revelation must remain unchanged. It is not intended to be reinvented, but only replicated, with fidelity. Its preserved essence, its non -disturbed weight. It is not surprising, Mumbai police It was written in reverse, each plot point taken from the inevitability of its climax, such as Christopher Nolan Memory (2000). It is a feat of script so meticulously elaborate that the only real task is to honor what is already on the page. After all, even in a world that manufactures homophobia again every day, this turn is still urgent. It was relevant a decade ago, and it will be so disturbingly relevant within a decade.
Deva It is a predictable battle
DevaHindi’s new Hindi remake of Mumbai policeIt is also its climax. Starring Shahid Kapoor, he advances towards an end that has become a point of conversation, but for all the wrong reasons. Where the original delivered a seminal turn, it is formed with something shy. A simplistic revelation that even in isolation feels little convincing. A conclusion that not only alters the impact of the original, but rather erases it, reducing climax to a predictable battle between the right and wrong. Dev (Shahid Kapoor) It is finally revealed that he is not a man tormented by identity, but simply a corrupt officer, complicit in the system for personal gains. Kill his colleague not out of fear, but to hide his own incompetence of public misfortune.
It becomes fascinating, then, placing both films next to each other, its climax in juxtaposition: not weighing one against the other, nor simply track their narrative divergences, but to look more deeply. Both offer revealing ideas, not only in the cinematographic traditions of their respective industries, but how viewers change through landscapes.
What is Bollywood sick?
For Devathat the reflection is condemnatory. He embodies everything that is wrong in Bollywood contemporary: his reluctance, his complacency, his instinct to withdraw from the risk. Now it is a quick reaco industry, either from the south or beyond, but doubts about. The complexity is removed, softens the rough edges, sand every acute truth, until everything that remains is something safe, tasty. Nuance is sacrificed on the altar of mass appeal. The result? Movies seeking to please the crowd but fear provoking them.
For Dev, violence is not a shield; It is indulgence. Where Antony exercised it to survive, dev it to prosper. One kills to hide, the other to conquer. Antony’s crime was born from fear, an instinct to escape the rope of a world that prefers to erase it to accept it. The DEV, on the contrary, are based on ambition, its brutality is a currency in a system that rewards domain. It carries masculinity as armor, always is proud of it. Antony was different. The alpha image was not his aspiration, but his prison. It was a mask that ever chose, but was forced to use. Unlike Dev, he doesn’t delight with him; He simply suffocates under him. He talked a lot about the acceptance of woven in the fabric of Malayalam cinema, of an audience that covers stories with a spine, of an industry without fear of provoking, challenging, to maintain a mirror for the world. It was also a testimony of the jumps taken by their favorites, to actors like Prithviraj who dared to embody a gay police officer, confronting heteronormative masculinity that the genre often glorifies.
A reflection of the elections
Maybe Andrrews (which has also directed Deva), After having created that bold climax once, he decided to deviate in another direction, not for doubt, but intentions. Maybe I wanted to challenge the expectation, dismantle the certainty of a known end and forge a different type of shock. If seen through this lens, Deva It is not only a minor imitation but a different deviation. A film that, despite all its failures, offers an idea of how stories are mutated when they are told differently, how a filmmaker fights with his own past and how a change in vision can reveal not only what was changed , but why. Perhaps then, it contains something worth examining, not as a new version, but as a reflection of the elections that shape adaptation itself.
Check out the road Deva Open in front of Mumbai police. The latter opens on a Sudoku grid, solving, the numbers changing, the logic falls in its place, immediately marking its identity as a mystery of murder. DevaHowever, it opens differently, with sandy images, almost fiction of Mumbai. Evokes the way Satya (1998) introduced the city, or as the restless frames of Dewaar (1975). It is not surprising, then, that DEV is often framed against the graffiti of Amitabh Bachchan. It is not surprising, even more, that just after losing his memory, ‘Main Hoon Don’ plays. And it is not surprising, above all, that as Gift, DevaAlso, it presents two different versions of its protagonist.
A goal moment for Shahid
In that sense, Deva He moves away from Mumbai policeEntering an existential field that, for a moment, feels genuinely convincing. It makes a gesture towards a criticism of the un controlled brutality, of the type so often exercised by alpha-maculine officers such as Dev. There is also something intriguing, seeing the struggle of Kapoor’s character to reconcile with his past self, unable to understand the aggression that once sold so frequently. It is almost like a moment, an unconscious attempt to correct hypermasculinity in which he defended so proudly Kabir Singh.
Bachchan’s hangover has been evident from the beginning, so much that if we had tracked it more closely, the final revelation would have been inevitable. It was always working class anger: an absent father, a child who grew up fighting the world for his next meal. For him, ideals such as honesty and duty make no sense. They are the same things that stole his childhood, his family, his faith in the system.
Bachchan as bait
As much as this Oda to Bachchan feels like the Andrrews hat tip for a star that molded it, it also reflects a pattern inside Bollywood: one in which the heroes are built for towers about stories, where the massive attractive drills the psychological nuances. This change is not incidental, it is part of a larger cinematographic drift, where introspection is marketed by show, and complexity gives way to the extravagant worship of the hero. Where Mumbai police It was an intimate character study, Deva From the beginning there is a celebration of its protagonist, with all its defects. In that sense, Andrrews forgets that Bachchan was also a messiah, not for himself but for those who had none. His anger was not indulgent but fair, not driven by revenge but by justice.
This alteration, then, has moments of intrigue. But he never knows what to do with the legacy he seeks to honor. And in that, it becomes another Bollywood copaccreator, using bachchan as a bait but never embodies its rebellion. A film that, like much of Bollywood contemporary, chooses comfort on courage.
(Anas Arif is a film writer and AJKMCRC’s media, Jamia Millia Islamia)
Discharge of responsibility: These are the author’s personal opinions
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