LAXMII

MOVIE REVIEW

- Atishay Jain

Genre: Hindi horror comedy

Run time: 141 min

Release platform: Disney+ Hotstar Premium

Director, writer: Raghavendra Lawrence

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Kiara Advani, Ayesha Raza Mishra, Sharad Kelkar, Rajesh Sharma, Ashwini Kalsekar

IMDB rating: 2.2/10;

My rating: 5/10

Background: Laxmii is a 2020 Hindi comedy-horror film written and directed by Raghavendra Lawrence as his first Bollywood directorial. This remake of his own 2011 Tamil film Kanchana, stars Akshay Kumar and Kiara Advani in the lead roles.

Aasif (Akshay Kumar) is a marble and granite businessman who is also some sort of ‘ghostbuster’ with an organisation that dispels myths and taboos about ghosts, jinns and spirits. Asif’s character is such a rationalist that he publically commits to wear chudiyaan (bangles) if he ever encounters a real ghost someday. Seems like Raghavendra couldn’t risk his superstar’s onscreen macho image, hence we see a paradigm shift in the protagonist’s image from a timid guy in Kanchana to a macho, rationalist ghostbuster in Laxmii.

Sharad Kelkar (Laxmii) has a relatively small yet strong role which actually adds a good pace in the second half. Sharad has been proving his acting acumen since 2004. He made his television debut on the show Aakrosh which was aired on Doordarshan and after that there was no looking back. He has worked with great actors on numerous TV shows and movies like Tanhaji, Ram Leela, Housefull 4 and many more.