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Mumbai Police was all about its climax. Roshan Andrrews' seminal 2013 thriller moved towards a finale so audacious, it felt like a glimpse into the future. A twist not just ahead of its time, but one that cemented Malayalam cinema's conceit: to tell stories that don't just unfold but upend, where character is inseparable from conscience, and narrative from the world it dares to reflect. A conclusion that not only sealed the film's denotative arc but opened endless connotative readings. A revelation that Antony (Prithviraj), a police officer wrestling with the weight of his hidden sexuality, takes the most dramatic step by killing his own colleague to shield a secret the world had already taught him to dread.
Mumbai Police Was Depth Over Highlights
Unlike those thrillers where twists exist simply to shock, this one existed to disarm. And unlike those thrillers in which revelations feel abrupt, imposed, or sensational, this one was always inevitable; if only we had been watching closely, with the right gaze. It revealed Antony as a tragic figure, his aggression a smokescreen, his violence a performance—a desperate attempt to conform to the rigid architecture of masculinity. The weight of scrutiny forces him into an existence dictated by fear. So, like any great thriller, its denouement was shaped by a resolution that was not just a conclusion but a consequence. Like any great thriller, it was crafted with both flair and spine. And, like any great thriller, it left us with a surplus of technique over gimmickry, of subtextual depth over textual highlights.
When someone chooses to adapt it, or worse, remake it, it should be obvious that the climax is untouchable. The setting can shift, the narrative can bend, characters can be reshaped, but that final revelation must remain unchanged. It isn't meant to be reimagined, but only replicated, with fidelity. Its essence preserved, its weight undisturbed. No wonder, Mumbai Police was written in reverse, every plot point taken from the inevitability of its climax—much like Christopher Nolan's Memento (2000). It's a screenwriting feat so meticulously crafted that the only real task is to honour what's already on the page. After all, even in a world that manufactures homophobia afresh each day, this twist remains urgent. It was relevant a decade ago, and will be just as hauntingly relevant a decade from now.
Deva Is A Predictable Battle
Deva, the newly released Hindi remake of Mumbai Police, is also all about its climax. Starring Shahid Kapoor, it moves towards a finale that has become a talking point—but for all the wrong reasons. Where the original delivered a seminal twist, this one settles for something timid. A revelation so simplistic that even in isolation, it feels unconvincing. A conclusion that doesn't just alter the original's impact but erases it entirely, reducing the climax to a predictable battle between right and wrong. Dev (Shahid Kapoor) is ultimately revealed to be not a man tormented by identity but simply a corrupt officer, complicit in the system for personal gain. He kills his colleague not out of fear, but to conceal his own incompetence from public disgrace.
It becomes fascinating, then, to place both films side by side, their climaxes in juxtaposition: not to weigh one against the other, nor merely to trace their narrative divergences, but to look deeper. Both offer revealing insights, not just into the cinematic traditions of their respective industries, but how spectatorship shifts across landscapes.
What's Ailing Bollywood?
For Deva, that reflection is damning. It embodies everything amiss in contemporary Bollywood: its reluctance, its complacency, its instinct to retreat from risk. It's now an industry quick to remake, whether from the South or beyond, but hesitant to unsettle. It strips away complexity, smooths out rough edges, sands down every sharp truth, until all that remains is something safe, palatable. Nuance is sacrificed at the altar of mass appeal. The result? Films that seek to please the crowd yet fear provoking them.
For Dev, violence isn't a shield; it's indulgence. Where Antony wielded it to survive, Dev brandishes it to thrive. One kills to conceal, the other to conquer. Antony's crime was born out of fear, an instinct to escape the noose of a world that would rather erase him than accept him. Dev's, by contrast, is rooted in ambition, his brutality a currency in a system that rewards dominance. He wears masculinity like armour, always taking pride in it. Antony was different. The alpha image was not his aspiration, but his prison. It was a mask he never chose yet was forced to wear. Unlike Dev, he does not revel in it; simply suffocates beneath it. It spoke volumes of the acceptance woven into the fabric of Malayalam cinema, of an audience that embraces stories with a spine, of an industry unafraid to provoke, to challenge, to hold a mirror to the world. It was also a testament to the leaps taken by its frontrunners, to actors like Prithviraj who dared to embody a gay police officer, confronting the heteronormative masculinity that the genre so often glorifies.
A Reflection Of Choices
Perhaps Andrrews (who has also directed Deva), having already crafted that audacious climax once, chose to deviate in another direction—not out of hesitation, but intent. Perhaps he wished to defy expectation, to dismantle the certainty of a known ending, and to carve out a different kind of shock. If seen through this lens, Deva is not just a lesser imitation but a distinct departure. A film that, for all its failings, offers some insight into how stories mutate when told differently, how a filmmaker grapples with his own past, and how a shift in vision can reveal not just what was changed, but why. Perhaps then, it holds something worth examining—not as a remake, but as a reflection of the choices that shape adaptation itself.
Take a look at the way Deva opens vis-à-vis Mumbai Police. The latter opens over a Sudoku grid, solving itself, numbers shifting, logic falling into place, immediately marking its identity as a murder mystery. Deva, however, opens differently, with gritty, almost non-fiction-like imagery of Mumbai. It evokes the way Satya (1998) introduced the city, or like the restless frames of Deewaar (1975). No wonder, then, that Dev often finds himself framed against graffiti of Amitabh Bachchan. No wonder, even more, that right after he loses his memory, ‘Main Hoon Don' plays. And no wonder, most of all, that just like Don, Deva, too, presents two different versions of its protagonist.
A Meta Moment For Shahid
In that sense, Deva moves away from Mumbai Police, stepping into an existential terrain that, for a moment, feels genuinely compelling. It gestures toward a critique of unchecked brutality, the kind so often wielded by alpha-male officers like Dev. There's something intriguing, too, in watching Kapoor's character struggle to reconcile with his past self, unable to fathom the aggression he once peddled so frequently. It's almost like a meta moment, an unconscious attempt to course-correct the hypermasculinity he so proudly championed in Kabir Singh.
The Bachchan hangover has been evident from the very beginning—so much so that had we traced it more closely, the final revelation would have felt inevitable. It was always about working-class rage: an absent father, a boy who grew up fighting the world for his next meal. For him, ideals like honesty and duty hold no meaning. They are the very things that stole his childhood, his family, his faith in the system.
Bachchan As Bait
As much as this ode to Bachchan feels like Andrrews's hat-tip to a star who shaped him, it also reflects a pattern within Bollywood: one where heroes are built to tower over stories, where mass appeal drowns out psychological nuance. This shift isn't incidental, it is part of a larger cinematic drift, where introspection is traded for spectacle, and complexity gives way to flamboyant hero worship. Where Mumbai Police was an intimate character study, Deva from the outset is a celebration of its protagonist, with all his flaws. In that sense, Andrrews forgets that Bachchan, too, was a messiah, not for himself but for those who had none. His rage was not indulgent but righteous, not fuelled by vengeance but by justice.
This alteration, then, holds moments of intrigue. But it never quite knows what to do with the legacy it seeks to honour. And in that, it becomes just another Bollywood cop-actioner, using Bachchan as bait but never embodying his rebellion. A film that, like much of contemporary Bollywood, chooses comfort over courage.
(Anas Arif is a film writer and a media graduate from AJKMCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia)