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'Devil’s Double Next Level' Movie Review: An Insufferable Comedy About People Stuck In An Insufferable Movie
Instead of relying on the one aspect of the film that made it different, 'Devil’s Double Next Level' resorts to the lowest hanging fruit on multiple occasions without even trying to earn its laughs
Director: S. Prem Anand
Writer: S. Prem Anand
Cast: Santhanam, Mottai Rajendran, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Selvaraghavan, Kasthuri Shankar, Yaashika Anand
Language: Tamil
Release: Theatrical
There’s a list of clever ideas in Santhanam’s meta comedy Devil’s Double Next Level that should have resulted in a film that’s at least remotely funny. It’s a spoof movie that operates on the same founding principle of the Scary Movie franchise and you find the film breaking the fourth wall throughout its runtime to keep throwing references and cliches towards you, hoping at least a few would stick. Some of these, like the idea of casting Gautham Vasudev Menon to play a police officer named Raghavan, might not seem like a big deal. But then the film goes several steps further to make this character fall in love with the protagonist’s sister and then run after her on the beach while ‘Uyirin Uyire’ from Kaakha Kaakha (2003) plays in the background. It’s definitely immature and silly, but at least there’s a bit of thought that has gone into making the joke land.
In another brief spark of genius, the makers combine two films that couldn’t have been more different to deliver what is the film’s only great laugh. Not only does it summon Manjummel Boys (2024), but it also mixes the Malayalam film’s iconic ending with a scene straight out of The Ring (2002) for a gag that is sure to have an afterlife much longer than this film.
In all fairness, Devil’s Double Next Level isn’t an obvious meta comedy. It is about a popular film reviewer named Kisa47 (Santhanam) who gets trapped inside an insufferable movie he is being asked to review. And for Kisa47 to return to the real world, all he can do is remain alive through the film’s runtime. It’s an outlandish concept and a setup that allows for the jokes to simply write themselves; yet, it’s shocking to realise how little the makers do with this idea.
Take the example of what they do with the character of Kisa47’s father, played by Nizhalgal Ravi. In reality, we’re told that he’s a regular auto rickshaw driver, but in the film within the film, he transforms into the captain of a cruise ship. We think we’re going to be seeing a lot of jokes about this role reversal, but then the film stinks it up by using the character as the mouthpiece for dozens of uninspired shit jokes.
You can smell the desperation from nautical miles away because the jokes just don’t seem to land. The film feels like it’s doing enough by getting a character to announce how it’s time for a fight scene, just because the setting has abruptly shifted to an abandoned factory. From a meta comedy, it transforms midway into an unidentifiable blob in which every joke is shouted and every punchline underlined.
Instead of relying on the one aspect of the film that made it different, Devil’s Double Next Level resorts to the lowest hanging fruit on multiple occasions without even trying to earn its laughs. It’s lazy writing at best, in an otherwise painful experience in which we sympathise with the protagonist, but not because his character appears real and relatable. We sympathise with him because, like him, we too feel stuck in a never-ending movie that was made to reconsider your choice to become a film critic.