Raksha Bandhan movie review: A committed Akshay Kumar can’t save this mothballed, melodramatic film

It’s not as should you wouldn’t have brothers who’re utterly dedicated to their sisters’ welfare at the present time. Sibling love has at all times been a powerful ingredient in Hindi cinema. However each the way in which the plot performs out, and much more importantly, how it’s handled, pushes us again in time, and never in a salutory approach.

Lala Kedarnath (Akshay Kumar) runs his ‘chaat-ki-dukaan’ in Chandni Chowk with a solo USP: all expectant ladies who eat his ‘gol-gappas’ will ship sons. Growth. There goes your first gong; your jaw drops. That is only the start, in fact. Inside seconds, Lalaji waltzes into his home, ensconced in a slim gali, labelling his single sisters by their bodily traits: one is obese, the opposite is darkish, the third is a hoyden; solely the oldest, the ‘achcha bacchcha’ (good woman) is of course the one one who’s truthful and demure. Nope, not kidding.

So, that is what we get. Lalaji negotiating the ‘burden’ of his ‘unbyaahi behens’ on the one hand, and on the opposite, attempting to stability his filial duties along with his personal wishes. A childhood sweetheart (Bhumi Pednekar), ready within the wings, her loudmouth father (Neeraj Sood) hovering. When there are marriages to be organized with money and type altering arms, there must be marriage brokers (Seema Pahwa). And the way can dowry deaths be far behind?

I’m undecided what made me extra uncomfortable — the mothballed plot detailing, the contrivances, the high-pitched melodrama which was once half and parcel of flicks we thought we had deep-sixed many years again; or the conviction that low-rent household dramas, with their uneasy mixture of humour and crassness, massively common at one time, is the way in which out for a beleaguered Bollywood.

Lalaji being a lot older than the ladies he’s surrounded by, is given a purpose after we are effectively into the movie, resulting in extra sniffles. A funeral supplies everybody an opportunity to have a superb cry. Lastly, as soon as everybody on display screen has been wrung out of the final tear, just a few rays of positivity seem. Keep in mind the usual technique used to shove in a shard of progressiveness effectively after the movie had bludgeoned us with its saccharine? Right here too, as soon as the three-fourth mark is safely over, after the lack of a younger woman and, look forward to it, a kidney, the movie all of a sudden turns into a beacon for ladies to face on their very own ft, and battle the evils of dowry.

Properly, hurrah, however this better-late-than-never change of coronary heart looks like a calculated after-thought, to maintain the carping so-called progressives completely satisfied after the supposedly conventional sorts have had their fill.

What retains us going, in as a lot because it does, is absolutely the dedication that Akshay shows in his function of ‘bada bhaiyya’, not slipping out of his character even as soon as. The women aren’t too dangerous both, at any time when they get an opportunity to get in a phrase edgewise. When they’re proven to be their very own individuals, proudly owning their dimension and shade, the movie shifts welcome gears. You would like there was extra of this.

You find yourself asking, is that this the one approach that the ‘bhaiyya mere, rakhi ka bandhan toh nibhaana’ vibe will be top-lined for immediately’s audiences? Do, by all means, present us the horrors of dowry, and the opposite evils related to this endless custom of shaadi-vaadi, however how about additionally being conscious of the responsibilty of an artist with such a big catchment? You begin with a woman completely satisfied to go it on her personal, insteading of hurriedly, nearly aplogetically ending with it, and see how the world adjustments.

Raksha Bandhan
Raksha Bandhan film forged: Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Pednekar, Sadia Khatib, Sahejmeen Kaur, Neeraj Sood, Sahil Mehta
Raksha Bandhan film director: Aanand L Rai
Raksha Bandhan film ranking: 1.5 stars