Lakshmi

Lakshmi movie is portraying the dark world in the most realistic way possible. The movie revolves around a 14-year old girl who was kidnapped and then come under the trap of human beings' inhuman activities. But unlike other girls also trapped in the same world, she never gave up the idea of punishing the culprits. Her goal was to eradicate everyone who was involved in trafficking. She was more courageous than any other girls of her age. The movie will convince you to come out and fight for justice and to strictly punish the wrong-doers.

Some of the finest actors have done a great job in this movie , lovely executed I must say , some parts were not necessary apart from those movie was well made !

I have always been fan of Nagesh Kukunoor's movie however Lakhmi is the best movie from Nagesh. Brilliant performance by Monali (Lakshmi) and Nagesh.

I din't even know when this movie was released and how come I missed this movie. movies from Nagesh have always have something new and have a meaningful story as well as have some message to society.

Lakshmi is based on true story.The movie story is little disturbing, however the way it has been directly is extraordinary. Performance of Monali Thakur is brilliant, the maturity of acting is comparable to Konkana sen.

Very few movies that have toughed me and Lakshmi is one of them.

Would 100% recommend this movie for all 18+ (strictly) audience.

Lakshmi is the story of titular character played by Monali Thakur, a 14-year-old girl who is abducted and sold trafficked into prostitution in a Hyderabadi brothel. The film is a harrowing account of the exploitation of young girls into prostitution. The portrayal of the brothel is an antithesis of the countless romanticised stories of what popular Hindi cinema used to show as courtesans, who dance and sing and who are overall very stereotypical filmi figures the kind of which you won't see here. The brothel is very much a real place which gathers some demonic humans who mercilessly trade young girls' bodies. The main madame, played by Shefali Shah, is testament to that, as she is a real person, who is cruel and kind in equal doses. She can be loving and caring one moment, and absolutely wicked and vicious the next, because that's what the job calls for, and she has a young daughter whose future depends on this very job. She is a very effective manager, as terrifying as it may sound, and Shah is brilliant in this difficult role, as usual.

Lakshmi is directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, who also plays the cruel trader and head of the brothel, along with his elder brother, Reddy, played by the great Satish Kaushik in a role that epitomises a wolf in sheep's clothing. Kukunoor does his best to give the brothel a horrific feel of authenticity, but while it could be mistaken as a realistic portrayal, it is much subtler than one would expect. The tough viewing is more due to the story itself, the characters and the dialogue, but the film remains quite clean and spares the viewers the horrid, disturbing pictures of films like, say, Bandit Queen. More than anything, the story takes a cathartic turn of events somewhere post interval where it turns into a standard courtroom drama which sadly isn't the most convincing you'll see. I think Kukunoor, being the director he is, could have done a better job with the material. The title character is played by the well-known singer. She does really well playing the girl's innocence and does look the part even if not exactly so young. The film is a good watch.

Thankfully with LAKSHMI, the director regains his somehow lost spirit back and delivers a pretty sincere, relevant and hard hitting film which is disturbing enough to make you feel uneasy thinking about its innocent protagonist and the inhuman cruelty suffered by her in just the tender age of 14.

Made in a clichéd style, LAKSHMI is reportedly based on a true story of a minor girl who is forcibly made to spend six horrible months in a brothel run by a local leader. After making few attempts to run away from that awful hell, the girl gets her severe punishments in the shape of ruthless beatings and repeated rape by men in a single night turning her into a lifeless body lying on the dirty bed with some bloody wounds and high fever. Accepting her unfortunate fate, she starts selling her body to all the strange men every night until she gets another chance of making an exit with the help of a NGO activist. The brave girl decides to be the only witness in the court against the powerful & wealthy opponents and then wins the case too, setting a new trend in the entire region saving many other minor girls from being abducted and thrown into a similar hell.

Showcasing some remarkable performances by the entire cast, LAKSHMI actually becomes an essential watch for its fabulous acts alone and there is a specific reason for this questionable statement discussed later. Monali Thakur plays the lead role impressively, speaking through her child-like face and expressive eyes along with Flora Saini providing a strong support as her close friend sharing the same room. Both Satish Kaushik & Nagesh Kukunoor are simply terrific playing the two evil men and the rest of the cast equally plays it well in their respective roles. However the characters which stand out with something exceptional after Lakshmi in the film are of Shefali Shah as the brothel manager and Ram Kapoor playing the frustrated lawyer fighting for justice. The noteworthy camera-work and decent background score helps a lot in enhancing its overall impact, but the film ideally should have been made with no songs and in a lesser duration to reach out its audience more strongly.

Coming to the statement left unexplained above, no doubt such stories need to be told and brought forward to show the society its own sick mentality revealing the hidden ugly truth. But at the same time, from cinematic point of view, the specific plot of the film has certainly been used several times before in many films and therefore has nothing fresh in store for the viewers as far as its basic content is concerned. Now as I feel, Nagesh being an experienced director, was also well aware of this lack of novelty & completely predictable storyline of his chosen subject. And thus had only two possible ways to make it work.

One - make the movie emotionally so strong that the audience get moist eyes and can feel empathy for the girl going through all that unpleasant sufferings like a lifeless object or Two - make it so disgracefully shocking that the viewers feel extremely sick watching its extraordinarily gory sequences like never before and start talking about Lakshmi, spreading a quick word of mouth after watching it. Now since it was the second option which was likely to bring in more footfall in the theaters & critic's praises too (becoming the talk of the town), therefore Nagesh courageously went for the same and made one of the most hard hitting films of the recent times with many dreadful, distressing and appalling scenes which might be a first for many Indian viewers not familiar with the films of world cinema.

Making it more clear, in order to make the message reach the end user in the most upsetting manner, Nagesh bluntly uses many awful but realistic scenes/dialogues in his film, with an honest mention of all the physical discomforts faced by sex workers without any hiding or adapting any 'audience friendly' style. For instance, though we have a masterpiece MANDI made in 1983 by maestro Shyam Benegal based on a similar premise, still a Hindi film has never looked into the daily activities of a brothel as truthfully depicted in LAKSHMI, with scenes showing strict instruction being given to use condoms before making the deal, the use of lubricants to make it easier, the girls being taught how to fake it all and then its climax sequence where Nagesh mercilessly tortures the revolting lady with a burning cigarette, only to face a more ruthless revenge taken by her later, beyond imagination.

Having said that (praising the project largely), I still found the film portraying many 'single layered characters' only and unable to go deep into the psyche of that innocent 14 year old girl facing that shameful trauma. The whole effort looked like a more deliberate one with the 'strong feel' of an intentionally made movie just to make the heads turn through its exceptionally gruesome scenes being the major attraction. Yes, the director does bring forward one of the most important problems of sex trafficking in our country, involving the adolescent girls sold at a price by their own families (in the remote areas) and the rehabilitation problem faced by these rescued women too searching for a stable life.

But despite the fact, I truly felt that perhaps Nagesh was also exploiting the same inhuman torture faced by the unfortunate victims in his film too, which was supposedly made to spread some social awareness about the concerning issue.

Anyway, as I might be the only one thinking in that direction, so just ignore this personal perception of mine and do try to give LAKSHMI a chance, mainly for its socially relevant theme and some powerful performances simply not to be missed.