One liner - silly, stupid film with stunning visuals and camera work. The fresh faces act really well, while familiar ones, including Ajay devgan disappoint.
Talking about the positives first (and this will end quickly), the film has some amazing visuals. It is not flawless, but cinematography is great. Not just the action sequences, most of the scenes have excellent framing and well thought of camera angles. Add to it, the sheer audacity of the camera work in some of the action sequences. The film has a chase scene(kid being kidnapped), which is something that we have really not seen in Hindi cinema so far. The brilliant title song is also another strong point. It starts off the film on a high energy note, and is used quite a few times in the film. Acting department has its share of positives. I am not being racist here, but Katrinas and Nargis Fakris have created a certain perception about acting skills of "foreign" faces that we see in Hindi films. We have two such faces, and they end up being the best performers in the film, and by quite some margin. The intense performance by a child artist especially helps the film.
The downside of the film is fairly straightforward. It is a remarkably stupid movie. The plot points are fine, in fact have enough potential, but the execution is extremely bad. It does not help that the lead delivers a lacklustre performance. Ajay fails to generate the aura that was required. It starts with the character talking to army men (how ironic) in a condescending tone, in his very first dialogue, and that creates a bad first impression. It really does not improve - surely not when he carelessly makes a girl pregnant, and forces motherhood on her. With some mature writing, maybe all this could have been pulled off with some grace, but you cannot expect maturity from this film. Also, there is stuff like the hero taking down the police headquarters, him escaping bullets from a range where it was impossible to do so, the hero going around (almost) killing people. We thought we have left all this behind in the 90s.
There are moments which may look exciting at first, but once we revisit it logically, a lot of it seems silly. The emotional scenes are poorly directed, and often, terribly written. The kid is extremely cute, but even there, beyond a point her overly aggressive haughty behavior can go from being cute to irritating. The Shiv connection is the weakest point - the character lives in himalayas, and has shiva related tattoos, that is all. Talk about exploring the central theme with some maturity?
It was sad to see high potential actors like Girish Karnad, Vir Das, Saurabh Shukla lacking in impact. One of the examples of immature writing, was creating a bihari caricature in a scene. Issue is not with the bihari thing, but that it is so poorly done. Saurabh shukla delivers one dialogue in Bihari tone, and otherwise that manerism is non existent. Also, you have certain expectations from the villain in such action films. That is another mighty disappointment (won't say much else would be a spoiler). In fact, you can expect this film to be a major punching bag for various reviewers.
The film makes a nice point about father-daughter relation in the end. But, if you are watching it in a theatre like pvr (with long ad belreaks), it has already been 3.5 hours since you entered for the show - and you are totally exhausted. The film also had the potential of comparing two contrasting lifestyles - city life luxury and that in the lap of the mountains. It has the sensitive topic of flesh trade at its heart. And we just have more and more of potential wasted.
Shivaay is basically an opportunity missed. Missed by a big margin. The film is definitely a visual delight. But as far as indian audience is concerned, we give (unconsciously) much more weightage to the plot as compared to the audio visuals of the film.
As far as prospects of this film go, I think ADHM will greatly benefit from the weaknesses of Shivaay. An ordinary ADHM begins to look good when compared to the absurd Shivaay. This said, I really wish both the films were much better.
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