What Ajay Devgan the star deserved, was a sharper director and a better script. In the end, there’s little else to Shivaay than the eye-watering locations (both in the Himalayas and in Bulgaria), and occasionally poignant moments between Devgan and the little girl who plays his daughter. Everything else is noise. Way too much noise.

Shivaay ultimately suffers from the malice of overdose. An overdose of action and an overdose of melodrama, both of which should have been chopped off at the editing table. As the director of the film, Ajay should have focused on keeping the story short and tightly edited.

Devgn’s stunts are a treat to watch, but that’s about it. Shivaay treks trough high altitudes, but the film keeps waiting for him to return to the valley with a string attached to his legs.

One can predict the knocks and punches and dives and VFX-aided saves without as much as batting an eyelid. Although I liked that one long take chase around the police headquarters, at best Shivaay is a terrific looking terrible film.

Visually, there is much going for this film, especially with cinematographer Aseem Bajaj making the most of the striking Balkan canvas and painting breathtakingly pretty pictures on it.

Watch Shivaay if you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE TO DO. Else watch a documentary on mountaineering. Or child trafficking. Or Bulgaria. Or whatever you want to. (Just a special mention for the company which made the tent that weathered pretty much everything.)

Shivaay seems high on never ending action and loud emotion. Visuals don’t fill the void of the missing storyline…

With  crisper editing and less melodrama, Shivaay could’ve been the best of the year. But the ‘more is less’ approach just doesn’t work out.

All said and done, Ajay Devgn fans will be watching it in any case but those who are still hooked to this, I will say that SHIVAAY is Ajay Devgn’s weakest Diwali gift since GOLMAAL. SHIVAAY must have started with the ambition to reach the highest peak but unfortunately, gets buried in the avalanche of a routine story that lacked any glory.

Why do we talk in terms of first-half, second-half? Because this is a Hindi movie — the best of which dip after the interval. You step back into the theatre, and realise, woah, this is one of those rare Bollywood movies that needn’t have existed after the interval at all. Absolutely nothing happens. Besides Devgn, who we know is happening anyway. So you sit back and enjoy Shivaay. Just please don’t ask why!

Shivaay is not the light fun crackerjack Diwali film you’d like to sit through this festive season. It is laden with an overbearing  darkness which eclipses all of the film’s efforts to pull us into its embrace.The proceedings get so edgy that they finally topple over.

Not a shred of originality in this father-daughter copy of ‘Taken’ plus ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’, unless you are fascinated by snow, tattoos, and foreign locales where really bad foreign people live. Ajay Devgn, has a huge fan following as an action hero does not disappoint, but the CGI finishing does. And you begin hating Kailash Kher singing annoyingly in the background during emotional scenes and the title song playing ad nauseam during the action scenes.

Shivaay comes across as a film that wants to be more than a regular action film. It doesn’t quite achieve anything there. On the other hand, it loses out on being an out and out crowd-pleasing action film too.

Performances are stable but the story is a let down. 172 minutes is a lot to bear some good butt kickin’. Ajay, hire some better writers next time and give the chillum a break!

The heroes of the film are only the action and the cinematography, as said earlier; otherwise it isn’t worth your penny. 

The action espionage comes to a fall owing to its shaky script and nonsensical twists. As soon as you start to get some faith back in the story, it disarms your thoughts with absurd idiosyncrasies. 
One thing that shines from the first frame to the last scene is the brilliant cinematography and photography.