Laxmii Review: This Movie Bombs!

Laxmii was the most talked about movie in the Disney+ Hotstar release line-up for this year. The impactful posters and Akshay Kumar playing a Transgender was a massive pull towards this movie. Promoted as Akshay Kumar’s finest performance by several outlets, the buzz around this movie was always present.

The narrative of Laxmii revolves around a man, who does not believe in the existence of ghosts and spirits, however, becomes a vessel for a ghost of a transgender woman. What follows next is a series of events that help this ghost take her revenge and do right to the injustice done to her, alongside her loved ones.

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When you pick a social message as vital and as sensitive as transgender acceptance in society, the least you can do is not make a caricature out of the characters. Sadly, this is what is done here. In multiple scenes, Akshay Kumar tries hard and fails to capture the essence of the character turning it into a terrible transition.

Bringing a mainstream actor to portray a transgender woman should also bring with it a powerful screenplay and an equally impactful characterization so that it leaves a lasting impact. Raghava Lawrence, who delivered this in the original, Kanchana, does not bring it through in this remake.

Bizarre things keep happening in the storyline of Laxmii leaving you with no context up to the last forty minutes of the film where you get the gist of what happened to the title character. That Akshay Kumar’s character Asif turns into Laxmii is explained due to the presence of the spirit but what will leave you dumbfounded is the shapeshifter qualities that the character possesses. The entire first half of the movie brings absolutely nothing to build up anticipation.

Laxmii is a major disappointment. In the first hour itself, the background score changes with each dialogue that sets the tone for the annoyance coming for the audience in the rest of the film. The dialogues in the movie seem very amateurish and made unbearable by the weird dubbing of this movie. The director tries to create suspense by using age-old techniques like dark-room silhouette shots, background score, and a spirit moving all around the house. However, nothing in this movie is close to being scary or defined as “horror.”

As far as performances are concerned very little is worth talking about. With a cast including Akshay Kumar, Manu Rishi Chaddha, Rajesh Sharma, Ayesha Raza Mishra, the director had a jackpot. Unfortunately, all this talent goes to waste as these stellar actors seem out of sorts in multiple scenes. It is Ashwini Kalsekar who despite being given some over the top situations, has provide some respite in the form of laughs with her dialogue delivery.

Sharad Kelkar gets around fifteen minutes as the original Laxmii and does a mighty fine job of it. The way he portrays the intricacies of the transgender character is above and beyond what Akshay Kumar manages to pull off. Kiara Advani knows how to act, and we have seen it in her last couple of releases. But here it seems it is a novice at play with not many dialogues and frankly not much to do in the movie either.

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The screenplay is at a snail’s pace for a horror-comedy. Nothing grips you to watch the entire movie, and the songs pop in out of nowhere. We ended up pressing forward multiple times throughout the two- and half-hour runtime. For this, we are glad that we saw this on OTT, as there would not have been a forward option in the cinema.

Our one-line verdict for Laxmii would be to avoid it and watch the original instead. If it were not for writing this review, we would have stopped watching the film 15 minutes in. Watch ‘Laxmii’ on Disney+ Hotstar here.

Rating – 0.5/5 | Grade – D

Images via Fox Star Hindi
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