Laxmii Bomb was renamed as Laxmii. If only that had changed the movie too.
The Raghava Lawrence directorial Laxmii does all justice with the removal of the word ‘bomb’, as it completely fails to create a blast. Though Bollywood has not returned to its regular frequency after the pandemic, of all the limited Bollywood movies, Laxmii is one of the least-planned movies of the year.
The Akshay Kumar and Kiara Advani-starring Laxmii attempts to break many stereotypes but fails to do so. The only positive we have is Akshay Kumar, who has been largely associated with nationalistic roles, agreeing to portray the role of ‘Asif’ and goes for an inter-faith marriage. The genre mentioned of the movie is horror-comedy, which is funny because comedy lovers will be horrified by this movie, while horror-movie lovers will laugh their lungs out. Ouch, in every possible way.
Laxmii is a transgender character in the movie and the only sensible role among the main casts is that of Sharad Kelkar as ‘Laxmii’. In other words, Kelkar is the soul of ‘Laxmii’. The film misses on so many things, proper caring of which surely would have made this two-hour-long film deep, sensible, and worth watching. Asif (Akshay) Kumar does not believe in ghosts, and he declares more than once that if he does come across a ghost, he will start wearing bangles (Main chudiya pehen lunga). The statement is weird and makes less sense, so does the movie.
So, the movie that wants to break gender stereotypes, consists of statements that are unconscionably offensive from the point of gender sensitivity. It is a complete mockery of the Indian audience’s intelligence and hence a big-blow to Disney+Hotstar to stand in the path of other OTT platforms. Even if the intention of the script might be good, Akshay Kumar’s torturous acting makes it sure that the movie overshadows the goal of representing the transgender community and ending up cornering the already vulnerable.
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Of course, in the context of the time when terms like love-jihad are used to demonise Muslim men, the movie showing inter-faith marriage and later on family’s acceptance to the same is significant. However, the same was not a part of Kanchana, the Tamil Film of which, Laxmii is a remake of.
The movie features Ayesha Raza Mishra, Rajesh Sharma, Ashwini Kalsekar, and is written by Lawrence, along with Farhad Samji, Sparsh Khetarpal, and Tasha Bhambra. Also, the film is a joint production of Fox Star Studious, Tusshar Entertainment House, Shabinaa Entertainment, and Cape of Good Films. Big names, however, could not result in much positivity in terms of the responses the movie had received so far.
Full of cliched storytelling and stereotyping, the songs too are very randomly inserted. There are rough transitions and establishment of the device that Bollywood has been again and again using- further stereotyping the people and claiming to break the same. As usual, the name of the pregnant woman is ‘Anjali’, transgenders are shown clapping their hands, dancing around a fire, and so on.
Thus, to this Akshay Kumar film, one thing that can be said is- this Diwali, do not let this Laxmii enter your homes.
