Vadh in Hindi, released in 2022 about a retired school teacher who kills a vile moneylender, got more than its share of attention. Its Marathi remake Devamanus is an honourable remake, nothing to get very excited about, but nonetheless a well-meaning exposition on how far evil must be allowed to travel before it gets intolerable.
The crux of the moral dilemma is a little girl whom the villainous loan shark sets his lustful eyes on. The righteous educationist Keshav (Mahesh Manjrekar) hacks the lecherous criminal to death, buries his body in the back of the beyond while all his well-wishers including his stiff upper-lipped wife Laxmi (Renuka Shahane) form a protective cordon around the ‘Devamanus’—a man of God who had to get murderous to vanquish evil.
While the original film was raw and sometimes effective, Devamanus replaces realism with loads of melodrama and a villain who appears more like a parody of villainy. The character is broadly written and badly acted.
Mahesh Manjrekar is brilliant as the conscientious patriarch. He pitches the character’s moral recalcitrance against forces that he won’t allow to control his sense of justice. Renuka Shahane is fairly effective as the wife, though she seems to limit her expressions to the domain of disapproval.
The remake lacks the starkness of the original. Director Tejas Prabha Vijay Deoskar seems to plunge into the moral dilemma halfheartedly. More kitsch than commentary, more potboiler than a thriller, Devamanus is an unremarkable adaptation of material which was no great shakes in the first place.
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