Directed and acted by Ajay Devgn, Shivaay is an action thriller which mainly focuses on Ajay Devgn and his action packed performances. The movie opens to a scene with snow-capped mountains. Ajay is seen a tourist guide on high-altitude treks and while trekking he falls in love with Olga (Abigail Eames), the Bulgarian woman. Olga and Shivaay fall in love and while on the mountains they give birth to a daughter and she is named Gaura (Erika Karr). Olga goes back to Bulgaria leaving behind her child and the rest of the movie is all about Shivaay and his daughter jumping and juggling on mountains. The second half of the movie is lengthy and has a dragged plot. Shivaay with his daughter travels to Bulgaria to find Olga and is seen fighting against the villains who kidnapped his daughter. The whole movie revolves around the action scenes and of Ajay and his stunts over the mountains, jumping from peak to another. Other characters have done a quite a good job, had it not been all about Ajay, the movie would have had a better result. Sandeep Srivastav and Robin Bhatt have done justice to screenplay, besides the movie being a lengthy. Cinematography is handled at its best by Aseem Bajaj and you will surely be impressed by the landscapes and locales at which the movie has been shot. On the whole, we would say Shivaay is an amazing action thriller, but had there been more of editing and less of Ajay Devgn, it would have won our hearts. Action thriller lovers should definitely go and watch the movie, for those who are not Ajay Devgn fans can look out for other options.

First things first. If you are an Ajay Devgn fan, shut this tab right now and go watch Shivaay. If not, maybe have a look at this in case you want some sort of sanity intact. And if you're determined to watch Shivaay any way whatsoever, a sensible thing to do would be to carry the chillum along, a la Shiva. Take a few puffs and you're all set. Without the puffs, it is impossible to survive Shivaay. The story of Shivaay has more meanders than the river Nile. It starts off in the Himalayas, reaches half the world away in Bulgaria. While the location shifts only a few thousand miles, events in the story are light years away from any sense or logic. But good photography and stunts can do only so much to a badly-written film. Ajay Devgn throws in his lot with the film. He acts well, tries to emote through his eyes. Erika, Sayyesha, Abigail all are fine in their characters. 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.)

Random indeed are the ways of Shivaay, both the film and the character. The hero knows no limits. He leaps off snow-capped cliffs and slithers down steep mountains with the ease of a boy swatting flies. The Shivaay screenplay is predicated on a weak, arbitrary premise. The actors in the supporting cast - Abigail, Erika, Sayyeshaa, and even Vir Das playing an ethical hacker whose services are enlisted by Shivaay - do their bit to be noticed, but no more. Shivaay is obviously Ajay Devgn's film all the way - he is in virtually every frame. His body tattooed with the lord's locks, serpent and trident, he is Shiva's own man on earth. 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. But Shivaay is a misfire of Himalayan proportions.

In the closing shot of Shivaay, debutant actress Sayyeshaa Saigal says, “I don’t know what to say. I am at a loss for words.” We too somewhat felt the same after watching this marathon self-indulgent and over lengthy movie that ran for a mind boggling 172 minutes. The Ajay Devgn movie drags on and on, making it a literal snooze fest after a certain point. And that is perhaps Shivaay’s biggest shortcoming. Performance wise, this one was an Ajay Devgn show all the way. The actor is present is almost every other scene, leaving little scope for others to perform. 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.