Akshay soars high in this inspirational tale which unfortunately failed to take off at the box office. Sarfira is a great movie with a terrific real life story and a solid performance by Akshay Kumar. Unfortunately another victim of the online trend of hate towards remakes in Bollywood and Akshay Kumar without even considering the quality of the movie. Like most Hindi movie audience I have not watched the national award winning Soorarai Pottru which is most likely a much superior movie. But unlike most Hindi movie audience, I have now watched Sarfira and absolutely loved it.
I think the reason the movie still retains its original DNA and emotional punch is because of the original writer, producer, director and some common cast. Kudos to Sudha Kongara for doing a great job retaining and replicating the movie's core soul. Paresh Rawal is perfect as the filthy rich, influential and arrogant aviation entrepreneur who is pitted against the ambitious protagonist of the movie played very well by Akshay and is his polar opposite. Radhika Madan and Seema Biswas are good in their respective roles. The movie even gets blessed by Suriya who was the producer and lead of the original through a nice Cameo at the end.
These are the kind of movies that deserve an audience. Heartwarming, well made stories that represent the best of society, with good acting, direction and content. Soorarai Pottru means Praise the Brave which doesnt exactly mean Sarfira (Crazy).....something gets lost in translation and just like the title, the movie's success and appreciation doesnt translate well despite its quality. This is a movie definitely worth watching with Akshay delivering a top notch performance like the days of his back to back social dramedies just a few years back. Loved it. 8/10.
