Master on Shivaay

***May contain spoilers***
Back from Shivaay. To put it clearly the movie is disappointing for the build up. The movie starts with Ajay Devgn(an badly created VFX sequence) jumping from mountain peak to bottom with someone calling out his name.

The next hour is fine but once the girl is lost in Bulgaria the story writer goes on vacation. There’s action after action and left over ‘Taken’ sets and scenes and in all that Ajay is not doing anything great. He doesn’t find the girl, he doesn’t find the criminal, nothing at all. He gets hold of a hacker and he gives him all the information in like 5 minutes. All the hacker, villain’s address, etc. If you are basing your film on Taken, you need to show the ‘skills’ in the lead actor. Here, Ajay has no additional skills and he’s just like another guy and he does nothing except fighting dozens of men. Like in 1 scene he fights and beats some 20 guys and then in climax he is struggling with 2 guys and shouting out to his daughter.. please run away while he’s getting kicked by just that 2 guys. (was I suppose to cry there?)

The performances are not good. Only Ajay does justice in some parts and some parts he appears tired and inactive. The dress designers and makeup for Ajay has been taken for granted and this has got to be his most ugliest outing in all his movies. I think the burden of producing/directing/acting has impacted his screen appearance. I think he should not forget he’s still a star and actor at the foremost and he needs to appear decent. (Though I agree that he’s playing a role of father searching for his daughter and he can’t be fresh always but they have overdone that makeup and didn’t take care of him well).

The girl’s choice of making her mute is the biggest mystery. This story didn’t needed the girl to be mute like Bajrangi Bhaijan where her being mute, the story is stuck and Salman has to struggle to find her home. Here, it adds nothing to the story. I think Ajay decided its very difficult to keep a foreign girl to teach her Hindi and better make her mute and gain some artificial sympathy. But the whole emotional connect is missing as we don’t get connected to the girl. IMO if they had girl talking, it would have connected more with the audience and would feel more sad when she’s taken away.

Erika Kaar looked good but she’s hardly an actress. I think we can discuss that even an Indian actress could have been taken for this role to create a more emotional connect and make this project bigger.

Another mystery is Girish Karnad’s character. There’s too much hints of him being the main villain and some build up but then suddenly that plot line is killed and he’s no way part of the villain’s gang.

So, you have foreign actress as lead, then mute white girl, then nameless villains, so how do we even connect or feel for these characters or get scared. Nothing works except Ajay’s role in a foreign country.

As for the direction of Ajay, the movie is placed very slowly and the ‘flow’ is missing. Its like sequence after sequence is directed like blocks of scenes put together but the scenes don’t move like smoothly. It clearly shows that direction doesn’t come naturally to Ajay and also I felt its pretty easy film to direct. Just few sequences and then there’s 60% of action sequences to be directed by action director.

Honestly the action is nothing great. I can’t believe the hue and cry. The chase sequence is good but in that Ajay is on the hood of the car and managing the wheel and chasing the villain’s car. That was hilarious and unbelievable. The rest of the action is good(not great) but its too long and unending.

Honestly if some plots have been fixed and movie’s length reduced to 30 minutes short then this could have been a good film to watch(still not great film as the whole premise is too weak).

The movie is Recommended only for Ajay Devgn fans and if some one are bored. To give perspective, I find this movie better than Hrithik’s Bang Bang and in comparison with Mohejodaro.