Selfiee movie review: Akshay Kumar-Emraan Hashmi's film is just a few months too late
Selfiee movie review: There's a sense of Deja Vu when you start watching Raj Mehta's latest film Selfiee. Starring Akshay Kumar and Emraan Hashmi, this comedic thriller highlights the toxic relationship that actors, fans, and media share in India. Selfiee is familiar not just for those who have watched the original film in Malayalam called Driving License (2022) but also for those who have watched and loved Ayushmann Khurrana, Jaideep Ahlawat starrer An Action Hero which was released a few months back. While Avinash Iyer's film was darker and more twisted, Raj Mehta's Selfie keeps the story simple and comedic -aiming to make it a mass entertainer.
Selfiee pits its lead actors Akshay Kumar and Emraan Hashmi in a battle of wits. One plays an extension of himself while the other represents the fans who make an actor a star. The result is not as effective as it sets out to be despite credible performances from the two actors.
Akshay Kumar plays superstar Vijay Kumar who is in Bhopal, a city in central India to shoot his next film. A crucial sequence in the film requires him to have a valid driving license in order to secure permission for a shoot for the producer. Vijay, of course, doe not have one. The local Road Transport Office (RTO) inspector Om Prakash Aggarwal (Emraan Hashmi) is summoned to expedite the process.
A fan of the star himself, Aggarwal agrees to help with only one condition in place, he wants to click a selfie with his son and the superstar before handing him over the coveted license. It's a five-minute job that Vijay readily agrees to be a part of but things go awry at the last moment which leads to a battle of egos between the two men. And the license is of course nowhere in sight.
Based on the late Malayalam writer Sachi's story with a screenplay by Rishabh Sharma, Selfie starts off on a promising note and showcases Akshay Kumar in all his glory. One can see the efforts the makers have put in to make it a quintessential Akshay Kumar blockbuster. The plot is meta- Kumaris a popular actor who values his well-wishers and fans and does not want to do anything wrong in front of the public eye. It's a role that has Kumar playing himself. On the other hand, Hashmi plays a small-towner inspector who knows he only has limited powers but is happy and content with his job. While on paper, the story holds a lot of promise, it falters in the implementation level.
A common man's rigidity versus a superstar's clout could have been played out on screen cleverlybut writers use the usual tropes of a typical masala entertainer to tell this story. The result is middling. By the time of the climax, the film seems like a stretch with ample melodrama thrown in.
