From it's trailer, one could figure out that Raksha Bandhan won't offer a story that hasn't been told a thousand times already, but I was confident that at least it would be heartwarming, entertaining and truly worth watching; but to my surprise it turned out to be quite shallow. There is no humour in the film and you never get emotional at any point, simply because the movie does not allow you to soak in the moment, as it's in a rush to reach the finishing line.
While watching the movie, you are bound to feel angry and frustrated at the things being shown, at the behavior of Lala Kedarnath, played by Akshay Kumar. I won't call it a negative aspect of the film because I understood what the filmmaker was trying to do there. Anand Rai was showing us a man who comes across as a good man who loves his sisters, but in reality he is an extremely irrational man. Kedarnath's extremely conservative ideology has stupid written all over it in bold letters, but he doesn't realize that. The director was showing us the stupidity that resides within our society through Akshay Kumar. You do understand that ultimately there will be a transformation in Kedarnath and then he will see everything as they truly are. But the problem here is that, the first phase of Akshay Kumar goes on for way too long, and the change that we see doesn't come till the very end and most of it is told through a voiceover, as if they were running out of time.
The first part of the film may come across as extremely misogynistic, but it allowed Akshay Kumar to act in a way he knows best; that is to make fun of everyone around him. Perhaps this is the reason this phase of Kedarnath lasts so long, because the creators wanted to make that the selling point of the film, but unfortunately it ends up doing the complete opposite. The thing is, in order to make the first half compelling, they should have included an equally strong counter view, someone who could tell Kedarnath everything wrong with his ideology; and the filmmaker didn't even need to look far for that character, as any one of Kedarnath's sisters could have presented that counter view. But unfortunately that did not happen, as it's an Akshay Kumar film and an Akshay Kumar film cannot dare to be about anything other than Akshay Kumar himself. It's quite shocking to see that despite one of the writer's of the film being a woman, all the actresses have been reduced to cardboard characters. This story is about women, and yet none of Kedarnath's sisters get a well-defined role to play. The only thing we know about the sisters is that they need to get married, that's all, nothing else. What they do, what do they want to become in their life, what is their perspective about everything happening around them, are questions that don't get answered in the film. We are to assume that their only aim in life is to get married. If even one of the sisters stood up against their brother, and showed him a mirror, it would have truly made for riveting content. They could have given that role to Gayatri, played by Sadia Khateeb, because of how sensible and able minded she was shown to be; but I suppose the writers did not have the freedom to do that, considering it is an Akshay Kumar film after all.
I had expected myself to get emotional while watching this film and cry in a few scenes, but surprisingly it never happened. The marriage sequence, the tragic events of the second half should have moved me to tears, but they didn't, simply because the filmmakers just didn't give those scenes enough time. You need to allow the viewers a few moments to get hold of what just happened in front of their eyes, but the director just rushed through everything as if he was desperate to wrap things up as quickly as possible.
Bhumi Pednekar and Akshay Kumar's love story was quite strange in the film. Bhumi is generally a fine actress, but here she was extremely loud and irritating. Also, I just didn't understand as to what kind of spell had Kedarnath put on her that she refused to get married to anyone else, despite the delay, despite his overly conservative and messed up ideology. Once again, I find it quite surprising that a woman has co-written this film.
The music by Himesh Reshammiya is a mixed bag. Some songs work, some don't but because there are so many songs in the film, ultimately you do get tired of them and wish that they had kept just one or two songs in the film. 'Tere Saath Hoon Main' is easily the best song of the film and it has been picturized beautifully as well. I just wish the scene that came just before the song was written equally well.
In conclusion, Raksha Bandhan too has turned out to be quite a disappointing film, just like so many films that have come out recently. Although, there was nothing new in this film and these kind of stories have been shown in television shows hundreds of times, but if the director still wanted to make it, then he should have allowed his actresses to take the lead, should have added more layers to their roles and allowed the movie some breathing space; it made no sense to move at break neck speed in a movie that relies so heavily on stirring up the emotions.
