"You will find very few superheroes outside of
the comic books", says one of the female character in the movie in an
apparent reference to Shivaay, the title role played by Ajay Devgan. In fact,
the actor has made a valiant effort to be a super hero in all aspects except
for a superhero costume. But the end result is not something that Ajay would
have expected. Shivaay, the second directorial venture of Ajay Devgan is a
monster in terms of visualization but is a torturous experience that goes on
endlessly without a full stop to close to three hours.
Shivaay
is a Himalayan mountaineer who goes to Bulgaria in search of his girlfriend
Olga who abandoned him and their new born baby. Their daughter Gaura who is
eight years old now want to meet her mother now and they travel to the foreign
land only to be found totally lost as they become prey to a kidnapping gang
involved with organ and flesh trade. How the title protagonist fight
singlehandedly taking law into his own hands to rescue his daughter from the
clutches of the criminals is what Shivaay narrate.
One
would expect a decent dose of action in a film projected to be one such film
belonging to that genre and that too with Ajay himself wielding the megaphone.
The movie has done total justice on that side but the execution goes over the
top adding lot of melodrama and unwanted sentiments that let down the movie
completely.
Add
to it the the three hour duration that took a heavy toll on the viewing
pleasure. At one stage, the film was finding it very hard to finish with
unnecessary scenes towards the end. The initial one hour or so was simply
exaggerated scenes that could have been told in little less than thirty minutes
or so was a major speed breaker that affected the overall flow.
Directing
is no mean task and director being the captain of the ship has to be fully
focused right from the day the project is visualized till the movie is wound up
with all the post-production work completed with the product ready for the
audience. With all due respects to the efforts taken by Ajay on the directorial
side, it was a struggle seeing him performing triple role of that of an actor
and director apart from being one of the producer of the movie.
Visually,
the movie is appealing with rich production values. The daredevil stunts though
at times was over the top, the way it was performed and captured to the big
screen was impressive. Cinematography was excellent and the mountaineering
scenes were well choreographed with quite good CGI. Editing should have been
better, trimming some unwanted scenes that only helped in extending the running
time. Some of the scenes looked as if the director failed to give the cut and
just goes on and on that badly needed some chopping. Music was good while the
background score was quite nice.
Ajay
Devgan appearing as the title protagonist have put in some commendable effort
especially on the action side. Sayyesha Saigal who appear halfway through the
movie put up a decent acting performance while the two foreign actors appearing
as the girlfriend of Shivaay and the daughter character were also notable.
The
action is good and the imagination of a movie of this magnitude is appreciable
but the film lacked a solid story and a fresh plot. Rather, the movie just ends
up as a badly presented version of Liam Neeson's Taken. Whether the resemblance
to the Hollywood flick is intentional or not is a different matter but Shivaay
just end up as a disaster.
Rating
- 1.5 / 5
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