Having made his share of action thrillers, Lokesh Kanagaraj now stars in one. Arun Matheswaran’s DC stars the curly-haired director as the ‘D’ in ‘DC’: Devadas.

Yup, the same one who ruined himself through obsessive love and alcohol in Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s classic novel Devdas. In DC, made in Tamil and dubbed into Telugu and Hindi, the destruction is turned outward while the alcohol continues to be copiously imbibed.

If ashes could turn, they would.

Kanagaraj’s Devadas is the leading light of a gang of armed robbers. Their latest heist brings them in the crosshairs of the police officer Bhojraj (Krish Dayal), who is keenly following the advice given to him by his boss: “Be brutal.”

Devadas and his mates, including Kitty (Avinash Raghudevan), go on the run, cutting down whoever crosses their path. But a heart of gold throbs behind Devadas’s epilated chest, compelling him to behave like Robin Hood when required and fall for sad-faced women who are awaiting rescue.

Devadas doesn’t succeed with the club singer Parvathi (Sanjana AK) but fares better with the rose-clutching sex worker Chandra (Wamiqa Gabbi). This Bonnie and Clyde pairing – a helpful poster at the brothel confirms the peak detailing – cuts a bloody swathe through the countryside, with Bhojraj in hot pursuit.

The story is as skimpy as the bloodshed is generous. Crimson is the strongest colour in cinematographer Mukesh G’s otherwise gritty colour palette. Arun Matheswaran, who specialises in stylistically staged nihilistic violence (Saani Kaayidham, Captain Miller), does what is expected of him. But he can’t make a cliched story that is fixated on death come alive, nor can he justify the staggering 142-minute runtime.

Matheswaran’s screenplay throws in the element of corruption within the police to justify the gratuitous parade of massacres. Anirudh Ravichander’s background score and songs, which include a couple of bizarre tracks in English, works overly hard on putting the cool into the carnage.

Kanagaraj, playing a gnomic type who’s a romantic at heart but just happens to like killing people, is a mystifying choice as the anti-hero. Wamiqa Gabbi isn’t much of an improvement either.

With character-building taking a backseat to gun-waving and knife-wielding, performance isn’t what is on offer here. Even so, Avinash Raghudevan, as the increasingly hapless Kitty, and Krish Dayal, as the sadistic Bhojraj, act their hearts out.

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