Starting in 1991, Akshay Kumar aka “Khiladi Kumar” acted in over 100 films and thanks to acclaimed South Indian director Priyadarshan, the actor’s image rose with Hera Pheri (2000).
There was also a period when he found success with films dealing with social issues but with commercial aspects. Case in point being Toilet: EK Prem Katha (2017), and Padman (2018).
Unfortunately, presently the actor hops from one film set to another in a stipulated time. He likes having many releases in a year and method acting has never been his forte.
Akshay’s co-stars have often joked about it openly during movie promotions. Sure, this strategy paid big dividends in the past, but now, it has backfired.
A good example of this is in Samrat Prithviraj (2022) where he is clearly uninterested in the role and fails to dig in to a rich character. The same is evident in Mission Raniganj (2023).
But the most shocking of all is the recent Ali Abbas Zafar’s Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (2024) as the genre of fits perfectly on the radar of Akshay Kumar — an action-comedy.