Nothing nostalgic

Johnson Thomas

South siren Raai Laxmi, whose quest to fame earlier was a short-lived romance with then cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, makes her Bollywood entry with this pitiful excuse of a movie Julie 2, which hopes to ride on the nostalgia and sleaze the name evokes. Julie 2 has nothing to do with Laxmi's super-hit 1975 film, even though the heroine looks like a decent cross between Laxmi and Tabu. It has also nothing to do with Shivdasani's movie other than Nishikanrt Kamath, the writer of that film playing a stellar role; Shivdasani takes on the directorial baton again, but not with any class.   

He has penned this story of an actress caught in the crossfire of a Dubai-based Don, Lala(Dev Gill), and a power broker Ashwiny Asthana (Pankaj Tripathi) getting gunned down by unknown assailants. This is basically a pointless and thankless exercise in filmmaking with neither actors, nor technicians looking good. 

The narrative is stilted and goes off in contrary directions, camerawork is voyeuristic and the editing is sloppy. Raai Laxmi, a fairly good dancer, has the body to make it in the South (if you know what I mean), but if she thinks she can do a Sridevi in Bollywood, she needs to think again!