‘Sarfira’ movie review: Akshay Kumar is on autopilot in ‘Soorarai Pottru’ remake

A scene from ‘Sarfira’

At a time when audiences are loving pan-India films based on the red soil, it seems strange that there is still a need to take a strong approach. crazyRemake of Surya’s popular Tamil film Soorarai Pottru, crazy This is difficult because it loses its soul on its flight from Madurai to Maharashtra. This is a common problem that comes up when Akshay Kumar drives retrofitted big budget vehicles sourced from the Deccan, perhaps because the star is more focused on volume than ride quality these days.

Old timers will remember how Jeetendra revived his career with remakes in the 1980s. With Akshay, the generational loss is even greater as the original films are easily available for comparison, not just for critics but for the general audience as well. Soorarai Pottru It was released directly on the OTT platform during the pandemic and is available with English subtitles and a Hindi dubbed version titled Udaan.

The market has something to offer. The makers know that the story of Captain (retd) G.R. Gopinath, who made low-cost aviation a reality in India by launching the frill-free Air Deccan in 2003, will resonate across India, but they are not sure the box-office will accept a South Indian star or an actor who tries to stay true to the regional essence of the character. Recently, Rajkummar Rao pulled it off with Srikanth Bola, but the subject or perhaps the market needed a star here.

What saves? crazy by becoming puppet It is writer-director Sudha Kongara’s storytelling skills that make the emotional core of the film work across languages. We know the genre; we understand the format in which the protagonist faces a slew of hardships to realise his dream and fulfil the promise he made to his people. What makes it different is that Sudha has cleverly navigated her way around the template to create a social entertainer that has the potential to keep people emotionally engaged and not let sensible people dismiss the one-man show altogether.

Taking inspiration from Gopinath’s book Simply Fly, he, along with co-authors Shalini Ushadevi and Pooja Tolani, have woven a compelling story around the turmoil in aviation at the turn of the millennium, giving it colour and context laced with emotional overtones and witty interludes.

In a very subtle screenplay, the film tells how the idea of ​​a low-cost airline challenged the monopoly of Jet Airways, the ambition of Kingfisher Airlines and the red tape that kept even Ratan Tata waiting. Gopinath gave wings to the aspirations of the common Indian. He understood before the market leaders that air travel was no longer a luxury but a necessity for the new Indian. That Gopinath eventually had to join hands with rivals to keep the airline afloat is not in the course of a genre where relentless hero worship is the rule.

In the fictional world, Veer (Akshay) grows up in a village where electricity has come after years of prayers and prayers and where people have to travel for hours to catch a train. Desperate for a change, he pursues a career in the Air Force but his life gets a new meaning when he doesn’t see his school teacher father, with whom he had an ideological tiff, in his last moments. He plans a low-cost airline but Paresh Goswami (Paresh Rawal is in good form as a sensitive businessman suffering from OCD), the big fish in the aviation market, doesn’t want him to have a stake in it. He puts obstacles in Veer’s path and Sudha makes sure not all of them are predictable. The film stands out with a well-thought-out venture capitalist played by Prakash Belawadi.

Well paced and cleverly edited, the episodic screenplay, dotted with Veer’s equal relationships with his entrepreneurial wife Rani (Radhika Madan) and a strong mother (Seema Biswas), ensures that the 155 minutes don’t feel like a long time spent on the chair. Cast in the mould of Pataakha, Radhika blends into the Marathi milieu better than Akshay, but we miss the natural appeal of Aparna Balamurali, who made the feminist spark realistic. Her pure intimacy with Surya was the highlight of the Tamil version. Age difference aside, the chemistry between Akshay and Radhika here is more or less cosmetic and the feminist touch feels like another layer of makeup.

Similarly, the social undertones of the story fade away in the remake. At the beginning of the Tamil version, Maran’s (Suriya) dance during a funeral procession places him in a social context. Here it feels more like the character lives up to the film’s title. Maran’s socialist father has more socio-political significance than the emotional turmoil created by Veer’s father and mother. In the original, Paresh reflected on his rise from a modest background. This helped explain his obnoxious behaviour towards the blue-collar workers in his organisation. Here, Rawal finds no such scope.

More importantly, the intensity and purpose in Surya’s character were the selling points of the film. The different looks he adopted to portray different times felt natural, but with Akshay, the layers of storytelling emerge. Of course, he is honest, but these days his honesty seems like a punctual factory worker who has put the machine on auto mode.

Sarfira is currently running in cinemas