Shivaay slammed by critics

It looks like we have a contender for the title of worst Hindi film of the year. And it belongs to Shivaay. The Ajay Devgn-starrer may have collected 10 crore rupees on the Indian box office, but is a disaster on all fronts.  The response to the film by critics is overwhelmingly negative.

Saibal Chatterjee, writing for NDTV, thought that despite the gorgeous cinematography, the film is a mess. “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.”

One of Bollywood’s top critics, Rajeev Masand, didn’t mince his words either.

“Ajay Devgn, who has also directed the film, plays Shivaay, a desperate father who must literally scale mountains to rescue his mute eight-year-old daughter when she’s kidnapped on a trip they take to Bulgaria.

That simple but potentially promising premise is buried under so much idiotic backstory involving Devgn’s character and the little girl’s mother; you can’t decide whether to laugh or to cringe.”

He added: “What Ajay Devgn 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 Devgn and the little girl who plays his daughter. Everything else is noise. Way too much noise.”

Other reviews, across multiple publications, also echo a similar sentiment. What this means for his hugely expensive film’s fate on the box office remains to be seen. Will the Indian audience digest yet another absolutely mindless film or opt for Karan Johar’s infinitely superior, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, the upcoming week, will reveal.