DC movie review: Lokesh Kanagaraj-starrer is a moody, visually rich drama that falls short

DC revolves around Devdas, a rebel whose reasons for rebellion are revealed in pieces rather than all at once. Wamiqa Gabbi plays Chandra, a woman pulled into a violent world by forces she did not choose. Their paths collide, their damage aligns, and what follows is not a love story in any conventional sense.

Lokesh Kanagaraj as Devadas is the film’s most compelling element. He does not have the conventional screen presence of a Tamil leading man. We have never seen him as an action star. His face does not belong on the kind of poster that Tamil cinema typically prints. But as you watch the film, none of that matters. His performance stands out because he understands, from decades on the other side, what a scene needs. He could pull off Devadas easily because he is familiar with the craft, and it works in favour for him.

Wamiqa Gabbi matches his energy without trying to overpower it. She does not play Chandra as a woman waiting to be saved, in fact she is as dismayed as the audience. There is a fury in her that the first half uses well, a sense that she has already calculated what she has left to lose and arrived at zero. Their chemistry is built not on tenderness but on a shared understanding of what it means to live in a world that has already taken everything from them. In the scenes where the writing lets them breathe, the pairing works. There is a rawness to it that feels earned. When we talk about chemistry, it is not only romance, but the action sequences that glide well between them.

Watch – DC trailer: Lokesh Kanagaraj, Wamiqa Gabbi’s romance unfolds amid crime and revenge

The first half builds the world with enough style and mood that you stay engaged. Apart from solid acting performances, the movie’s pillars are Mukesh G’s cinematography and Anirudh Ravichander’s music. The movie is shot quite artistically, drenched in shadows and dim light that make every frame feel like it is hiding something. Anirudh’s score, spanning 15 tracks, is ambitious and works well with the film and characters, swinging between haunting classical melodies and pulsating electronic beats. When it works, it elevates the film into something that feels genuinely cinematic.

One of the most striking things about DC’s first half is its colour palette. The film uses colours as storytelling and mood. Reds and blues dominate the frame in alternating waves, almost like the film is breathing in two colours. The red is Devadas: anger, blood and impulse. The blue is Chandra: cold, distant, the colour of someone who has already shut down emotionally and is watching the world from behind the glass. When the two of them share the frame, the colours bleed into each other, creating a purple haze that feels deliberate. In the first half, this visual grammar gives the film an identity. You can feel the world of DC before you understand it, and that is entirely because of how it looks.

The second half is where the film loses its way. The violence keeps escalating, but the stakes do not move as the movie proceeds. More blood appears on screen, but you understand less about why it matters with each passing scene. Devadas remains angry and Chandra remains damaged. While both of them have a small character arc as they grow fond of each other, the runtime demands simply does not materialise it. You are watching two people move through a world of grey, as the film promised, but the grey never shifts. It never lightens nor darkens. It just stays the same shade for two hours and twenty-three minutes, and by the end, even the violence feels monotone.

Sanjana Krishnamoorthy, as Parvathy, is introduced with enough mystery that you expect her to complicate the Devadas-Chandra relationship in ways that force the story forward. The film introduces her, sets her aside, brings her back, and by the climax, you are still not sure what her function was beyond giving the poster a third face. It is a waste of a character and a waste of a performer who clearly had more to give.

The dialogues, written by Arun Matheswaran and Franklin Jacob, land in individual scenes. There are exchanges between Devadas and Chandra that move you and make you ponder. But they do not accumulate into a voice that distinguishes DC from Matheswaran’s previous work.

There is a version of DC that could have been something special. A film about two people in a world of grey, where the violence is not just physical but moral, where every choice costs something and every alliance carries a price. DC has style, atmosphere, two compelling leads, a world-class composer and a premise that asks the right questions. What it does not have is a screenplay that knows how to answer them. The film finds its voice in different shades of red, as promised. It just never figures out what it wants to say, but surely would make you feel quite intensely.

DC movie cast: Lokesh Kanagaraj, Wamiqa Gabbi, Sanjana Krishnamoorthy
DC movie director: Arun Matheswaran
DC movie rating: 3 stars