The lockdown has rarely given us some worth watching mainstream Hindi movies releasing on the online digital portals. And adding to the list, LAXMII is just another of those ‘So Poorly’ made films that frankly took away my spirit of writing detailed film reviews at BTC. So as expressed, this isn’t any review but just a compilation of thoughts I had after watching the unexpectedly awful Diwali release featuring Akshay Kumar, boldly playing a transgender.
The very first comment that came within just 5 minutes of watching the film (before Akshay walks in) was from a teenager in the family and he said, “Please check whether you have wrongly played a dubbed South film instead of LAXMII?”
The confusion was very right as from the first scene itself; the film gives a clear impression of a poorly dubbed South movie uploaded at Youtube, because of its weird camera angles, over the top acts and unfamiliar kind of dialogue delivery. Strangely the film begins at that unbearable loud note and then never calms or tones down in its entire two hour plus duration despite having an interesting and talented cast including the beautiful Kiara (who is quite brutally wasted doing nothing). A collective hamming of almost everyone on screen gives you a really tough time and a screechy background score further makes it horrible except a few tolerable scenes becoming watchable due to Sharad Kelkar alone.
Ruining even the minimum expectations, LAXMII turned out to be a big disappointment and then I had to play the unforgettable 5 minute sequence of SANGHARSH (1999) for the sleepy teenager to show him how Ashutosh Rana made us shiver in fear as the scary transgender two decades back. And then, how we kept remembering him while walking towards home after watching the film in its first Friday night show in the late 90s. Unarguably, there can be no match whatsoever, even close to what Rana did in SANGHARSH as the dreadful villain……… no match in the past and no match will possibly ever be there in the future too.
Unable to describe how Akshay does the exactly similar act in one particular scene in LAXMII putting all his efforts, no doubt he certainly had Ashutosh Rana at the back of his mind as he was very much aware how that performance is unanimously remembered as a landmark achievement in Hindi cinema till date. After all, he was only the lead star of SANGHARSH and a key witness of how the entire limelight got taken away by Ashutosh Rana, who also won the Filmfare award for the act.
Coming back to LAXMII, honestly the only merit of the film remained that it made me recall three films, SANGHARSH (1999), its English inspiration source THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991) and TAMANNA (1998) in which Paresh Rawal delivered a simply flawless, emotional performance as Tikku. Further, these three films introduced my young nephew to the masters of their art, Ashutosh Rana, Anthony Hopkins and Paresh Rawal respectively. Now he is eagerly asking for more films of the three to be his next watch taking it forward from LAXMII.
Thankfully at times, even extremely bad films also become fruitful in a different way. However, LAXMII can also be a quoted as a perfect example of how the same director makes two similar yet completely different films due to reasons best known to him.
Rating : 1 / 5 (And that too majorly for only Sharad Kelkar)
Note 1:
LAXMII is the official remake of Tamil hit film KANCHANA. And KANCHANA is the second part of the MUNI Series of four films, all written and directed by Raghava Lawrence. The director also played the lead role in all the four films and all became successfull at the box office. LAXMII has also been directed by the same director.
Note 2:
TAMANNA (1998) also features in the Movies to See Before You Die list at BTC.
And for friends interested in reading the detailed review of TAMANNA, it can be read at the following link.
https://www.bobbytalkscinema.com/recentpost/Tamanna-1998-Movies-To-See--374
Tags :
Laxmii Review by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, Lakshmi Review by Bobby Sing, Remake of South Hit Kanchana, Akshay Kumar playing a transgender, New Bollwyood movies reviews by Bobby Sing, New Hindi Films Reviews by Bobby Sing, Notes by Bobby Sing