Raksha Bandhan is a family movie, which is meant to give a pleasant watching experience. However, these days you never know as movies can go either way.
Akshay Kumar¡¯s forte Is social issues. Raksha Bandhan is another attempt of his to address a grave issue. However, it falls completely flat only because of the treatment of the said issue. Nowadays, it's impossible to tell Akshay's movies apart from the public service announcements that are broadcast before both his and everyone else's movies.
Raksha Bandhan's humour is highly questionable as is the parallel that Kumar tries to draw with Sooraj Barjatya movies in the beginning of the film.
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Aanand L Rai¡¯s signature small-town setting is important to the story of Raksha Bandhan, which was centred in Delhi. It relates the tale of a brother who tries all in his power to marry off his four sisters, regardless of the size of the dowry, only to discover later that the practice has detrimental effects on women's lives.
Lala Kedarnath played by Akshay Kumar, has four sisters and he leaves no opportunist to point out their 'non existent' flaws - be it color, size or interests.?
He tries to belittle all of them as per the society's problematic ideas of beauty which are all factors that need to be considered for marriage -? one sister is dark-skinned, another is a tomboy and a third has a huge problem that starts with the word F....don't worry it's not abuse but a serious problem that people look down upon, yes, being fat.
Haven't you girls witnessed fat-shamming or gotten fat-shammed by your relatives or friends??Were we not born in the twenty-first century, where self-love is expressed through one's body and appearance?
But only one of his sisters, Gayatri is depicted as an ideal girl for marriage as she is Sundar, Susheel and Sabhya.?
Since she is a fair-skinned and traditionally attractive woman, this is hardly surprising. But the movie never lets us forget that sisters are a burden for Kedarnath.
Speaking about Kedarnath, he is a golgappa-vendor in Purani Dilli. His shop is well-known for its golgappes, which claim that if you eat them while pregnant, they would ensure that you will have a boy child.
Isn't it super outdated in a day and age where boys and girls are on an equal footing? Through this movie, the idea of a boy child is still being propagated and it's appalling.
Although his childhood girlfriend Sapna, played by Bhumi Pednekar, is patiently waiting for him, the financial strain of paying for four dowries puts a lot of pressure on him. As a result, her father gives him six months to offload his sisters.
During the "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao" era, Kedarnath prefers to collect Dowry rather than provide money for their sister's education and well-being. The humour that follows makes painfully obvious fun of Lala's sisters who don't seem to be suitable for marriage. These four are more a collection of tropes than actual persons; the film's message about women being in control of their own fate arrives too late to save them.
Akshay Kumar told PTI, "We cannot disagree with the fact that dowry is very much there in India. It's in the layers. Some call it dowry, gift, 'Sankalp'. It has different names.Some demand that they want to have the wedding on a large scale. I would call it extortion. The father and the brother are not that capable, and yet they try to do as much as they can so that it (the wedding) happens."
The Aanand L Rai-directed movie, according to Kumar, is a "sensitive" one because hardly many films have been done about the subject.
What the filmmaker had in mind for the movie seems to be portrayed in the narrative, screenplay, and direction. The production design and art direction are effective. The frames are given depth and artistic value by the earthy colour scheme.
Himesh Reshammiya's music is a total letdown, and when he hides behind the mic, it simply makes matters worse. The songs and the circumstances that surround them appear contrived and added solely to draw in the audience.
Despite the fact that the girls were treated very poorly and humiliated in the first part of the movie, the viewer was given some insight into backwards thinking and breaking the traditional dowry customs in the second half.
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