“Comics ki duniya ke bahar superheroes bahot kam milte hain,” says debutante Sayyeshaa Saigal, who plays an Indian diplomat Anushka in the big ticket Diwali release, Shivaay. While we would all like to believe that there are no superheroes in the real world, Ajay Devgn as Shivaay in the film defies our belief. Not just our beliefs, but Shivaay also defies gravity, natural calamity and anything that could harm a human being made of flesh and blood—a speeding truck or an avalanche.
That mostly sets the precedent for the film that begins with a huffing and bruised Ajay Devgn, a doll and three dead bodies at a ledge. In no time, you are transported to nine years ago where you witness Shivaay at a snowy crest, lying, smoke still coming out from the chillum. It is followed by action-packed sequences where the demi-God is trying to rescue the local cops. He can fly, jump, trek and do anything without a sign of stress and more importantly without getting hurt.
Few minutes into the movie, Shivaay is leading a trek to the Himalayas where he meets Olga (Erika Kaar), a Bulgarian DU student who falls in love with this man who has humongous tattoos all over his body that establishes his belief in Shiva (or may be that he's Shiva himself). She has to go back to Bulgaria. She has responsibilities there and she knows it. He knows it too. Anyway, they make love and she ends up pregnant. He is alone in the Himalayas with literally no friends, but even if he is in love with the woman, he wouldn't leave the hills, as he can't 'survive'. He also wants the child and after a bout of unwanted anger, pleads to have the child as he needs a family.
Olga, for the ambitious woman she has been portrayed to be, leaves just after giving birth to a girl. Shivaay is left behind to parent the kid, who he names Gaura (Abigail Eames). The daughter, now nine-year old, discovers a letter written by her mother and demands to meet her. The two fly to Bulgaria without any trace of the woman they have gone to meet.
With the predictable story presented till now, you know the search for Olga is going to be difficult, but a plot has to be sketched to show the machismo of the “hero” in this tiring 172-minute Bollywood commercial fare that has the liberty of being illogical. No wonder then that within hours of reaching the foreign shore, our hero has busted a child trafficker. He is in trouble now. His child is kidnapped and he must do anything to save her.
What follows is a series of car chases, a la Rohit Shetty school, busting of more traffickers in the most heroic way possible, and at last a super predictable happy ending.
This is Devgn’s second directorial venture (his first was U, Me Aur Hum), and he seems to be too fond of himself. May be that's why he has kept most parts to him without developing any other character in more than one scene.
Even when the camera work by Aseem Bajaj and special effects are in place, the movie is a pointless drag.
Director: Ajay Devgn
Actors: Ajay Devgn, Abigail Eames
Ratings: 1.5
