Dev (2019 film)


Dev is a 2019 Indian Tamil-language romantic action-adventure film written and directed by Rajath Ravishankar on his directorial debut.
The film stars Karthi and Rakul Preet Singh in the main lead prominent roles, while Prakash Raj and Ramya Krishnan play supportive and pivotal roles in the film. Harris Jayaraj has been roped into score music for the film while cinematography is handled by R. Velraj and editing is done by Anthony L. Ruben. The film marks the first collaboration between Karthi and music director Harris Jayaraj. The film was earlier scheduled to have its theatrical release on the eve of Christmas, and later scheduled to post Thai Pongal but was postponed due to tight race at the box office.
The film was scheduled to have its theatrical release on 14 February 2019 on the eve of Valentine's Day. It was premiered exclusively in USA, a day before the original release. The film received negative reviews from critics, due to which it was trimmed by 15 minutes.

Plot

The first half of the film is shown via narration by Dev's friend Vicky, who is a stand-up comedian. Dev Ramalingam, whose family lives and owns a big business in India, is an adventure-loving young man that is always in pursuit of new adventures; however, Vicky feels that Dev does not have a proper aim towards his future life. Dev always takes his friends in adventures, whereas Vicky wants to have a different life than Dev's, who wants to have a normal office job rather than following his passion.
Vicky intends on getting Dev distracted so that he will not continue any other adventures, and instead begin a relationship. Dev is encouraged to love a girl and prevents Vicky from attending a job interview, where he later makes Vicky realise his talent in stand-up comedy and pursue it. Meghna Padmavati, who lives in the United States and is a CEO from a San Francisco startup, first appears when Dev sees her Facebook profile. He sends her a request and later gets disappointed when she does not respond. Later, he assumes that she is a businesswoman who ran a highly successful company on her own.
Dev is reluctant to stalk a girl in this day and age, but his clueless friends encourage him to stalk her anyway as it is "a manly thing to do". As fate has it, he eventually sees her in India and throws away his ethics to try creating another relationship. Meghna finds it difficult to trust men due to the childhood trauma she experienced when her parents divorced, leaving her and her mother to live by themselves. The film ends, hinting towards a possible sequel about Dev's relationship with Meghna.

Cast

The film titled Dev was announced by debutant Rajath Ravishankar who previously served as the assistant of Anurag Kashyap, as his maiden directorial project in March 2018 and it was revealed that Karthi and Rakul Preet Singh would play the main lead roles in the film for the second time in a film after Theeran Adhigaram Ondru. The film went on floors from 8 March 2018 with the shooting being commenced at Chennai. The first look poster of the film was unveiled by Karthi's brother Suriya on 25 October 2018. It was evident that Karthi playing the titular role with the lead actor returning to act in a road film after 9 years since Paiyaa in 2010 essaying a prominent role and lead actress Rakul Preet Singh as Meghna, an Indian woman entrepreneur.
The film director revealed that the film's plot is inspired from the life of former Indian cricket captain and star all-rounder Kapil Dev. Most of the portions of the film include bike stunt sequences with lead actor Karthi playing the role of a bike lover/enthusiast and they were shot in the roads across India and Nepal especially at the Mount Everest. The scenes of the film were extensively shot in areas such as Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Kullu, Manali, Himalayas, Gulmarg, Ukraine and Carpathian Mountains. The shooting was wrapped in around early November 2018 in Ukraine. The climax portions of the film were revealed to have shot in a place called Sisu in the Himalayas mountain range.

Music

The film's soundtrack and score is composed by Harris Jayaraj, who is collaborating with actor Karthi and director Rajath for the first time. The album features five tracks with lyrics for the songs were written by Thamarai, Kabilan, Vivek and Rajath.
The first single track titled "Anangae Sinungalama" was released on 14 December 2018. It was confirmed by Harris Jayaraj in his Twitter account. The song was rendered Hariharan, Tippu, Bharath Sundar, Arjun Chandy, Krish, Christopher Stanley and Sharanya Gopinath have lent their vocals, and the lyrics were penned by Thamarai. The song received highly positive reviews from critics and was trending during its release. The song, which is well packaged with peppy and trendy music, is heavily inspired by the tune of the 1983 Michael Jackson hit-single "Billie Jean", with the beats and the chorus sounding similar. The framing of the lyric video has been conceptualized and executed by Ranjith Kumar of SFTC Media. Behindwoods in their review, stated that, "The song is high on energy, and that energy is infectious. This is just another beauty from Harris and just another great writing from Thamarai."
The full album was launched on 12 January 2019 at a launch event held at Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai, where the film's cast and crew and other celebrities attended the event. The songs were released in all digital platforms the same day, and the lyrical videos were released in YouTube. Behindwoods rated the album three stars out of five, and stated that "Harris Jayaraj's touch makes the album sound refreshingly youth and romantic." V Lakshmi from The Times of India reviewed the album, stating that "The overall vibe of the album is upbeat, though he hasn’t experimented much in terms of soundscape, the songs are foot-tappingly enjoyable." Moviecrow rated the album 3 out of 5, stating that it is an autograph from Harris Jayaraj for his fans. Siddharth Srinivas from OnlyKollywood rated 3.25 out of 5, and chose "Dei Machan Dev", "Anangae" and "Oru Nooru Murai" as his favourite picks.
The soundtrack of the film's dubbed Telugu version was released on 9 February 2019, at a pre-release event held at Shilpakala Vedika in Hyderabad. Like the original Tamil version, the film's Telugu version has five songs, with one of the songs "Chelliyaa Adugudhama" was released as a single on 30 December 2018. All of the songs had lyrics written by Chandrabose. Reviewing for the album, Neetishta Nyayapati of The Times of India, summarised that "All in all, the album of Dev is a clear winner with all the numbers in it standing out in their own way — a rarity these days. Harris’ music in particular is refreshing and a delight to listen to, completely reminiscent of a time when music meant more wind instruments and less techno. While it is difficult to pick and choose a best number from the album, Cheliya definitely has to be it for us. However, give the album of Dev a chance this weekend and it might just put a much-needed spring in your step."

Marketing

The first look poster which was released by Suriya on 25 October 2018, features Karthi with a BMW R1200GS superbike model behind. It was evident that the actor is playing an adventure lover in the film. Director Rajath in his interview stated that "We went around and checked out over 30 different models of various superbikes and finally zeroed in on this superbike’s GS1200 model. It’s an off-roader and we were the first ones to order the bike as soon as it got launched this year. It’s quite an expensive one; we’d got it specially ordered in January and it was delivered to us in April. Several actors have ridden superbikes on screen, and we wanted this one to look different. This model complements Karthi’s height and physique. Since Karthi will be on the bike in major portions of the film, we wanted to make sure everything about it was right."
The teaser was released on 5 November 2018, a day before Diwali and received positive reviews from the audience. The official trailer for the film was unveiled by actor Suriya on 31 January 2019. Post release, the makers announced a contest for the film's promotional purposes, titled "Dev Superbike Contest", from 18–25 February 2019, in which two winners will get the superbike used in the film, worth 8 lakhs. Naveen Kumar and Abarna from Chennai, were announced as the winners, and won the superbike from actor Karthi.

Release

The film was earlier scheduled to have its theatrical release on 21 December 2018 on the eve of Christmas, and later rescheduled to 10 January 2019 post Thai Pongal but it was postponed, due to tight race at the box office. The film had its theatrical release on 14 February 2019 on the eve of Valentine's Day. Tamil Nadu theatrical rights for the film were sold to Murali Cine Arts. B. Madhu acquired the Telugu distribution rights under his banner Light House Movie Makers. The United States distribution rights were acquired by Atmus Entertainment and was premiere took place on 13 February 2019.

Home media

The satellite rights of the film were bagged by Sun TV in Tamil and Telugu, and digital rights of the film were sold to Sun NXT. The film's television premiere took place on 7 October 2019.

Critical reception

Soumya Rajendran from The News Minute rated 1 out of 5 stars, stating that "This is a never-ending love saga that resembles a javvu mittai, but isn't half as pleasant as eating one." Srinivasa Ramanujam from The Hindu reviewed it "A film that thinks colourful clothes and pretty locations can make up for the lack of a solid storyline." M Suganth from The Times of India rated 1.5 out of 5, and stated "If you want to describe Dev, you could very well go ahead and call it a misadventure." Behindwoods rated the film 2.25 out of 5 and stated "Karthi's Dev is a visual delight with a few good moments, but could have been better with an engaging treatment." Gauthaman Bhaskaran of News18 rated 1.5 out of 5 and stated "Ravishankar's movie is a breezy effort that gets swept off its feet in a blinding blizzard on the icy Himalayas or in the chaotic roads of Chennai." Sify rated 2 out of 5 and reviewed that "Dev is way too predictable to ever surprise you!"
The original version of the film had a run time of 159 minutes, but the film was trimmed by 15 minutes due to poor reviews from critics.