‘Shivaay’ review: Snow-capped mountains, impressive stunts, nice tattoos and Ajay Devgn!

Film: Shivaay

Director: Ajay Devgn

Producer: Ajay Devgn FFilms

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Sayyesha Saigal, Erika Kaar, Abigail Eames, Vir Das

‘Shivaay’ one of this year’s much-awaited, big Diwali release, unfortunately fails to match up to the hype created months before its release.

Ajay Devgn essays Shivaay, a bold and strong mountaineer with elaborate tattoos of Lord Shiva’s locks, serpent and trident all over his body. Shivaay takes some college students on a Himalayan trek. Olga (played by Polish actress Erika Kaar), a Bulgarian studying at the Delhi University is also a part of the group. Shivaay and Olga instantly fall in love with each other (We mean really fast!) and very soon Olga gets pregnant. However, she is in no mood to either marry Shivaay or settle down in India (making rotis for her desi husband and raising his kids) and hence leaves for Bulgaria. Shivaay, meanwhile is left with their deaf-mute daughter (played by British child actor Abigail Eames), who he trains to be a super-skilled Himalayan mountaineer like him. Even though Shivaay raises his daughter telling her that her biological mother is dead, but she eventually learns the truth and the father-daughter duo leave for Bulgaria in search of Olga.

‘Shivaay’ is an action dominated film with Ajay Devgn performing some really impressive stunts, which are a treat to the eyes! (And we love him for that!) However, the film’s length (172 minutes to be precise) and unnecessary dragging of the plot, play the main villains. While the first half is filled with beautiful visuals and nail-biting action, the extremely lengthy second half might just leave you with a desire to edit the film yourself and do away with the unnecessary bits. ‘Shivaay’ definitely scores on music (composed by Mithoon) and you would probably want to listen to songs like ‘Bolo Har Har Har’ and ‘Darkhaast’ on loop! The film also offers excellent camerawork (by Aseem Bajaj) at some of the world’s most magnificent, snow-laden, high-altitude locations. However, we feel a lot of hard work could be done on the film’s screenplay (by Robin Bhatt and Sandeep Shrivastav) and editing as ‘Shivaay’ would have made a nice watch had it been shorter. It turns out to be an all in all Ajay Devgn film, where the director cum producer cum lead actor of the film is present in almost every scene, offering very little (or no) scope for other actors to showcase their talent! While ‘Shivaay’ does have the perfect masala/ingredients, just a little bit of effort in cooking and it could turn into an excellent film!

Our rating: 2.5/5