Movie: Shivaay
Direction: Ajay Devgan
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Sayesha Saigal, Erika Kaar, Abigail Eames, Vir Das, Girish Karnad, Saurabh Shukla
Music: Mithoon
Cinematographer: Aseem Bajaj
Editor: Dharmendra Sharma
Genre: Thriller, Action, Adventure, Drama
Rating: ∗∗
What is it about: A Himalayan mountaineer meets a Bulgarian student on trek falls in love with her, but the Bulgarian has a different plans for future. They part ways after having a daughter together, what happens when that kid grows up and wished to meet her birth mother forms the crux of the story directed by Ajay Devgn.
Why it’s disappointing: Both the trailers released made you believe this one is an out and out action-adventure flick. And the visuals in trailer were extremely stunning. But unfortunately that was all the fun, when you sit down to watch the movie, it totally takes a toll in entertaining the audience.
The writing was so lazed out, that you eventually start to sleep towards the end. A slow sleeping pill, which you bought a ticket to endure. Sandeep Srivatsava, took too much liberty in conveying a simple straight forward story, which goes on forever.
Wonder why Ajay Devgn was eager on direction so soon, not only that he produced the film too. A huge step down, He’s a wonderful actor, but he couldn’t do justice to himself in Shivaay. It mostly establishes him as a superhero, rather a mountaineer. There are so many scenes in the film, which are made like intro scenes. That tires you out really soon, as there are many in the film.
The film is on high with a budget of 105 crores, but was not spent well. The film is heavily dozed with VFX, at places you can see cars which look like your old 3D games, the worse was the scene where they had to total a Lamborghini. The visuals looked great on small screen and YouTube, but when we see the film on the silver screen, it comes out in its true form and every flaw is seen sized up.
The action seemed quite fast forward, there was no choreography. If at all it had been tastefully choreographed, Shivaay would have been strong in action. It begins with a decent promise, but dives in to total nonsense. Ajay forgot that it was a film involving a normal man, not a super hero.
The music was very average by Mithoon, so was the background score.
The editing was jumpy by Dharmendra Sharma, wonder if they had chopped few scenes.
What to watch out for: Aseem Bajaj’s cinematography was good, regardless of heavy VFX, he was able to make his mark.
Then there were two characters in the film who were convincing in their performance. One was Sayesha Saigal as Anushka and Abigail Eames as Gaura. They both did a good job.
Verdict: Ajay Devgn’s directorial move didn’t work out. Shivaay, which lured everyone with its title, couldn’t hold the audience in cinema halls. The effort went in to VFX and locations could have been channelled in the writing department. The film heavily borrows from TAKEN, and tries to add Bollywood masala and drags it for a tiring 174 minutes. Definitely not worth a watch.
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