Raksha Bandhan

Starring Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Pednekar, Sahil Mehta

Directed by Aanand L Rai

Rating: ****

After two devastating duds, Akshay Kumar springs back into livewire action with this nostalgic ode to what what was once known as the ‘family social film’. There is a deeply felt message against the dowry system embedded in the craftily though a little hastily written screenplay which goes from tomfoolery to mush without skipping a beat, thanks to Akshay’s absolutely spot-on screen presence.

Part Kishore Kumar, Part Rajendra Kumar and fully Akshay Kumar, the actor is in form,taunting women who want to get pregnant with male children after eating his gol-gappas, fat-shaming his sister, one out of a quartet of siblings he treats as his children who must be wedded as per a promise to his dying mother(who is not really his mother, but we are not getting into that here), plus there is Lala Kedarnath’s assistant , played with a devil-may-care swagger by Saahil Mehta.

Oh yes, there is Bhumi Pednekar who never fails to leave an impression no matter what the length of her role. Here she is cast as the lady-in-waiting, Kedarnath’s sweetheart who will wait till eternity for her man to be freed of his family responsibilities before marrying her.Bhumi has two knock-out scenes where she makes it very clear to her man that it is him or none.

All this needed some serious character development. Director Aanand Rai seems to in a tearing hurry to get on with the show. I sometimes wished the narration would slow down to catch its breath. But then I realized the pace of the story mimics its protagonist’s breathless routine.

Sandwiched among four demanding all Lala Kedarnath can think of is show to make the money to marry off his sisters. His harebrained schemes to make money range from the hilarious(performing at Matadi jagrans) to heartbreaking(selling his kidney).

This is a film that tells you, it’s okay for a man to cry when he hurts . It’s okay to let it all hang out. Go have good cry in the movie theatres this weekend.Watch out for Seema Pahwa as a self-important professional match maker. She is part of an improper joke about stammering Luckily the film know exactly what to say and how to say it.