Sarfira review: Yet another melodramatic and overly long episode of Akshay Kumar saves the day

In a streak of doing biopics with a social message throughout his career, Akshay Kumar’s Sarfira does not do justice as a remake nor as a biopic.

Sarfira review: Directed by Sudha Kongara, Sarfira is a Hindi remake of the Tamil film Soorarai Pottru which starred Suriya as the main lead. Here Akshay Kumar takes his place as the titular role and adds yet another biopic/ heavy on social message kind of movie to his filmography. The story is loosely based on the memoir of Air Deccan founder, G.R. Gopinath. It revolves around a former Indian Air Force Officer who dreams of launching his own low cost airline. His dream is to make flying affordable for all Indians, removing the class and caste system out of it. But in order to see his dream fly high, he has to constantly face obstacles, be it lack of funds to start a business or the politics of the upper class who own airlines as well.

We have seen quite a few movies on entrepreneurship and the foundation of Sarfira’s story is based on one where it wants to put the rich and the poor on the same pedestal - the idea of our house help, our driver, our cook sitting next to us on a plane, them getting the same opportunities as well. But because the film lacks soul, the moral does not reach you at all. This is mainly because the story does not serve the social message it is trying to convey, it serves the hero. It is Akshay Kumar’s version of the story. He has to be the savior. He has to be in every frame and all the other characters work towards making him look better. He plays Vir Mhatre, who is from a small village in Maharashtra but lives in Mumbai with his wife Rani (Radhika Madan) to fulfill his dreams. Throughout the movie, he has an inconsistent Marathi accent that comes out whenever it wants and the rest of the time he speaks fluent Hindi like he was born and brought up in Bombay like the rest of us. It's important to point this out as the film does not really feel like it is set in the early 2000s. If not for some of the old airline names, the rest of the locations feel like they are from today’s time. 

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Sarfira also feels like a two and a half hour long ad for an airline and it just feels exhausting by the end. It had not even been an hour to the film and we had already seen Akshay Kumar weirdly dance to three songs. And that’s a lot for a biopic; there were of course more songs to follow. It reminded me of his recent colossal fail at the box office earlier this year, Bade Miyan Chote Miyan which also had the actor shaking moves to quite a few questionable lyrics. The only two characters who made this film bearable were in fact Paresh Rawal and Radhika Madan. Paresh Rawal as the antagonist in this film, made me see him in a different light. His character used sanitizer right after he shook hands with the working class or fired an employee if he used the same washroom as him. He was the evil businessman who wanted to sabotage Vir’s dreams at any cost. The sheer disgust on Paresh Rawal’s face for the lower class and his constant politics in the film make you realize how impeccable he can be in a negative role.

Akshay Kumar speaking to him in Marathi does remind of their iconic Hera Pheri scene for a split second. Radhika Madan’s character, on the other hand, is way more interesting than even the film as a whole. Her arc alone could have a spin off show of its own. She dreams of having her own bakery and does not want to get married till either of them get a direction towards their career. For most of the film, she is the sole breadwinner of the family and whilst being a ‘supportive’ wife, she does not let that be her entire personality either. And she for one, did ace her Marathi accent in the film. 

The climax of the film is not impactful at all, because the crux of the beginning of Vir’s dream to the way it ends is all soaked in melodramatic tropes that we have seen before. It is difficult to connect to a film that is knee deep in stereotyping characters from both classes, where there is sudden religious tokenism for no apparent reason and the hero cannot talk to anyone at a lower decibel. With Sarfira, Akshay Kumar truly has become the flag bearer of the ‘hero saves the helpless people’ genre and it is starting to become rather repetitive.

Sarfira is playing at a theater near you!

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