Shivaay Review: An Action Extravaganza without a Soul

Sethumadhavan

A Himalayan action entertainer is what the promos of Shivaay promised and that is what we probably feel while watching the first half an hour or so of the movie. We get to see the vast expanse of the mountains, the snowclad peaks in the distance and in the midst of it all we have Shivaay (Ajay Devgn), who seems to know the mountains better than the whole of mankind. In an impressive act of daredevilry (which is also nearly impossible for a human) we seem him do death defying stunts on a mountain, all in the garb of answering the Indian Army’s call for help. Ajay Devgn’s second film as a director is ambitious alright, the very fact that he stood by his decision for a face-off against a formidably strong film like Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil itself suggested the same. And the promos only went on to make this appear all the more clear.

Shivaay starts off with us getting introduced to the title character, a Himalayan mountaineer who is respected for his ability to handle the mountain terrain admirably well as the early scenes indicate. Shivaay meets Olga (Erika Kaar) a Bulgarian National who speaks Hindi during one of his trekking expeditions and they fall in love. They have a daughter, Gaura (Abigail Eames) but Olga leaves the kid with Shivaay and goes back to Bulgaria to fulfil her family commitments. After 8 years Gaura whose life revolves around her father realizes that her mother is alive and is in Bulgaria, hence Shivaay takes her along with him to meet Olga. What happens once they reach Bulgaria is what the actual story is all about. However it’s unfortunate that Ajay Devgn takes an excruciatingly long time to get to the point where the actual story line picks up momentum.

The romance between Shivaay and Olga is hardly impressive; the lack of chemistry between the two clearly shows. The writing (Sandeep Shrivastava) is also ordinary at places and that doesn’t help either. For a film that is mounted on a lavish scale it is a surprise to see that there is no investment made on the characters, barring perhaps Shivaay and Gaura. Even more surprising is to see very few known faces in the film, the only ones being Vir Das, Saurabh Shukla and Girish Karnad among the supporting cast. For an action film which does have some heavy duty stunt sequences it is really disappointing to see Shivaay shown as a desi superhero but not having any adversary worthy enough of him. After all what’s the point of having a superhero action film if the antagonist is not powerful enough? And the attempt to pass off Shivaay as a modern avatar of Lord Shiva (check out the cheesy dialogues during the same) is actually unintentionally funny.

Mithoon’s compositions and BGM work to an extent while Aseem Bajaj’s cinematography is a big plus for the film. Talking of performances, Erika Kaar and Sayyeshaa Saigal are both strictly functional, while Vir Das tries to be funny and doesn’t really succeed. Saurabh Shukla and Girish Karnad float around, while Abigail Eames is a good pick to play Gaura. Ajay Devgn is comfortable doing the stunts and pulls off a few emotional moments well, but then all he does for most part of the film is to sport a grim expression which lasts forever of sorts. In fact the film does have stunning visuals and fantastic stunts, both living up to the promise exhibited in the promos. But beyond that there’s nothing much which works in favour of the film.  Eventually this an Indian version of Taken with a lot of emotional drama added to it, that’s all.

Bottomline

Ajay Devgn deserves credit for making a good visual spectacle with Shivaay, the action sequences and the cinematography being the highlights of the film. But beyond that the film has precious little to offer.

Rating: 2/5