2/5

Shiva

Director: Ram Gopal Varma

Cast: Mohit Ahlawat, Nisha Kothari

Decades ago came a film called Zanjeer starring Amitabh Bachchan, which has me floored. Ram Gopal Verma’s Shiva had promised to be another Zanjeer and almost succeeded to deliver. The slip between the cup and the lip is what mattered.

Shivkumar (Mohit Ahlawat) has joined the police force and wants to make a difference to the society. He sees his colleagues turning a deaf ear to the plight of the people and a blind eye towards the crime in the city. Enter Nisha Kothari – a crime reporter with a mighty pen, who tires to be what Jaya Bhaduri was to Amitabh Bachchan with knives and daggers in Zanjeer.

There is a gangster turned politician (like in Ab Tak Chhappan) and a Home Minister (Dilip Prabhavalkar) as well playing the negative elements adding to the bad men from the cop force.

How the hero rebels is the story of Shiva. The problem here is that the film is a cliché and is not as good as his earlier films on the same subject.

Ram Gopal Varma after creating films like the earlier Shiva starring Nagarjuna, Rangeela and Satya could have easily done better. The film, which has been made at a better budget than most Ram Gopal Varma films, has some gruesome head banging and ear splitting scenes. And that’s what will primarily alienate most women from watching the film. Blood and gore is what will disturb the women, thus restricting the film to single screens rather than multiplexes.

If the film had been handled well then it could have been a good action flick sans the blood and gore. Mohit holds a lot of promise and needs to venture beyond Ramu while Nisha Kothari’s job is to sex up the screen.