Akshay Kumar's latest film Laxmii should have learnt from Tanishq, who make advertisements only to withdraw them. Had the makers of Laxmii suffered from this lack of conviction and withdrew the film, we wouldn't have had to see such a day.
Laxmii, directed by Raghava Lawrence, is a remake of the 2011 film Kanchana, and I am definitely not going to watch the original because I am scarred for life. The hero of Laxmii, Asif, says, "The day I spot a ghost I will start wearing bangles". Why? Because the film happily buys the stereotype that bangles are equated with femininity, weakness, shame and what not!
Yes, this is what Bollywood is dishing out in 2020 while all of us IRL are celebrating women and the breaking of the glass ceiling as Kamala Harris is set to be the first elected woman Vice President of the USA.
Coming back to wearing bangles, Akshay does put them on because there is a transgender spirit that possesses him. Let us not even get into the plot because it is one big eyeroll. Every possible stereotype associated with the transgender community has been peddled here to the point that it is offensive.
I was even hoping for a brainless comedy but Laxmii fails even there by a mile. Not even one of the jokes land. The film roped in a bunch of talented actors - Rajesh Sharma, Ayesha Raza, Ashwini Kalsekar - and turned them into butt of jokes. Akshay Kumar is so loud in the film that it's just cringeworthy to see him. Kiara Advani, on the other hand, looked thoroughly uncomfortable throughout the movie. The duo had zero chemistry between them.
Sharad Kelkar inexplicably manages to hold his own and shows that it’s possible to play a transgender with dignity and grace, but this isn’t a film where anything with dignity is allowed to survive and so Kelkar is quickly gotten rid of.
Even judging by the Bollywood standard of “brainless comedies” Laxmii falls short miserably. Neither funny nor inspiring and a horror in the most literal sense, it makes mockery of the very things it claims to be celebrating. A hero with a scientific temperament comfortable with his misogyny and a film where transgender characters have to carry the burden of nauseating stereotypes. The year isn’t over but it’s safe to say that Laxmii is the worst film of 2020.
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