An ordinary film that is devoid of novelty
All the remakes are subject to minute dissection by critics as well as the audience. This is once again proved to be correct in the case of Laxmii which was remade from the original film Kanchana (Muni 2 in the series of Muni) from Tamil which was released 9 years ago. This was remade and dubbed into several languages including Telugu, Kannada, and Sinhalese languages. Now, this was remade as Laxmii in Hindi by Raghava Lawrence which is streaming now on Disney+Hotstar Multiplex.
Storyline
Following the request of her mother, Rashmi (Kiara Advani) convinces her husband Asif (Akshay Kumar) to visit their house in Daman for celebrating the 25th wedding anniversary of her parents. During their stay, Asif who doesn’t believe in ghosts and spirits is possessed by the spirit of Laxmii the transgender woman to avenge her brutal killing.
As a result, Asif transforms into a transgendered split personality and takes all the family members for a ride with his actions which keep them on tenterhooks all the time. Laxmii alias Asif finally hunts down her killers after a sizzling climax to rest in peace in the end after destroying her killers.
Performances
Akshay Kumar managed to pull off a lackluster character quite comfortably with his impeccable acting style especially the transgender portion played by him is of top class. But his character should have been a shade better than what it was in Laxmii. He is too loud at times and overacted a bit in some scenes which should have been avoided.
Kiara Advani is passable while Rajesh Sharma, Manu Rishi Chadha, Ashwini Kalsekar, Ayesha Raza, and Tarun Arora are just okay in their characters and nothing much is there to eulogize about their performances.
Sharad Kelkar is the lifeline of this film with those remarkable final 40 minutes and the indomitable presence of Akshay Kumar helped Laxmii to scrape through with some honours despite many loose ends and shoddy screenplay.
Behind the scenes
The two songs Burj Khalifa and Bam Bhole are picturized pretty well much to the relief and music of Amar Mohile, (the signature tune of Laxmii is quite haunting) with songs composed by Tanishk Bagchi, Shashi-DJ Khushi, Anup Kumar, and Ullumanati sound good on ears but could not make any lasting impact.
When Kanchana was released in Telugu and Tamil languages, it created a lot of euphoria catapulting Raghava Lawrence into the big league of directors as there were all ingredients in right proportions that appealed to all sections of audience and also the comedy-horror presented in Kanchana is a new kind of genre at that time.
But now the times have changed and with the advent of OTT the content got overgrown by crossing boundaries and comedy horror has become passé unless there is some variety in story or difference in execution. As a result, Laxmii failed to match the present-day expectations being a poor replica of the original.
Verdict & Rating
Some of the comedy scenes look forced and lack subtlety which is the main drawback of the film. These should have been devised properly instead of simply copying scene to scene from the original. Some new scenes should have been conceived to add more variety keeping the sensibilities and regional flavors in mind.
Without Akshay Kumar, Laxmii would have bombed badly. If one can keep aside the comparison part, there is a chance of some section of the audience who has not seen the original are bound to love Laxmii due to the highlighting of empowerment angle of a transgender character. But for all others, Laxmii is just another ordinary film that is devoid of any novelty and easily forgettable.
