This movie was awaited for sometime because people wanted to see Akshay Kumar’s daring transgender look in a saree. Laxmii released on OTT platform of Disney Hotstar on the 9th of November 2020. There were some fantastic promos, great posters, super trailers. All of which pointed to an entertaining masala horror movie with good dose of comedy put in to make it a universally watchable. There was also the controversy about its name which was then changed just before release from Laxxmi Bomb to Laxmii.
All this was a sure shot formula for success at the hustings. No such luck though as the film Laxmii turned out to be a damp squib. A bomb that never went off. One sat through the whole movie for that moment to come, where the pent up expectation were answered but it never arrived.
The start was punchy and it did give a scare down the spine. Then the scene with Akshay busting the myth of the Tantrik baba that was also picturised well but that was it and these two instances came right in the beginning. From the time the family bit was thrown in the movie, it was only downhill from there on. There are many things that don’t work for the movie. First the casting, why, because the Kiara and Akshay chemistry does not work though she is all over him. Age shows on Akshay and Kiara appears mismatched for his character and imagine, they are shown as elopers! Secondly the Mother and daughter-in-law bit does not evoke any laughter as it is over the top hamming, even slap stick would have done, but no go there.
The other two characters of the house – the men, look lifeless in their own right, you draw out nothing from their performance. I don’t know why Akshay’s character is named Asif, does it change anything, don’t know, maybe apart from some social message in the time of CAA may have produced results, but we have all moved on and it falls to one side.
Laxmii cannot be called a tribute to the transgender community either as it appears very late in the day and irrelevant. Well one has to really think hard to come up with the salient points or saving graces of this flick. There are three though. One – Sharad Kelkar in a minuscule role does appear effective as a transgender and Two – Akshay in some parts specially when possessed. Finally, the FX where three personalities spring out from Akshay’s character. But all these three instances appear so filmsy that the whole movie cannot be held together by them.
A rich subject utterly guttered. This horror-comedy that was supposedly promised to be a Hyrdogen bomb, turned out to be what we call the past Diwali ‘fuski’. Being the remake of the hugely successful Tamil film ‘Kanchana’ the prospects seemed immense from it, but no go. Even the music or the highly anticipated transgender song, though it had some excellent choreography, it falls flat as it is hardly hummable.
Laxmii is the movie to be strictly seen with a forward button at hand and on the a lazy Sunday, when you have nothing to do and you have a lot of Data to spare (It’s running time is 141 minutes). In the hindsight one can say ‘Thank God they removed the Bomb from the name’ and changed the spelling and wisely released it on OTT rather then wait for a theatrical release in India. Go figure what would have been the fate.
– by PAWAN GUPTA
(Image: Fox Star Studios Facebook page)
Cast of Laxmii:
Akshay Kumar as Asif
Kiara Advani as Rashmi
Sharad Kelkar as Laxman / Laxmii Sharma
Rajesh Sharma as Rashmi’s father
Ayesha Raza Mishra as Rashmi’s mother
Manu Rishi Chadha as Deepak
Ashwini Kalsekar as Ashwini
Tarun Arora as MLA Girja
Aryan Preet as Young Laxmii Sharma
Credits of Laxmii:
Based on the Tamil film Kanchana (2011)
Produced by Fox Star Studios, Cape of Good Films, Shabinaa Entertainment, Tusshar Entertainment House
Directed by Raghava Lawrence
Written by Raghava Lawrence, Farhad Samji, Sparsh Khetarpal, Tasha Bhambra
Music – Amar Mohile
Songs – Tanishk Bagchi, Shashi–DJ Khushi, Anup Kumar, Ullumanati
Cinematography – Vetri Palanisamy, Kush Chhabria
Edited by Rajesh G. Pandey
Streaming on / Distributed by Disney + Hotstar
