Not just another rags to riches story
MOVIE REVIEW:
CAST: Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal and Radhika Madan
DIRECTOR: Sudha Kongara RATING: 8/10
Sarfira
AKSHAY Kumar seems to love starring in biopics of real-life heroes, who address social issues.
He did that with Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, to highlight the plight of inadequate sanitation, especially for women in rural areas.
Then there was Mission Raniganj, where he played an officer, who persevered to rescue trapped miners; Padman, a pioneering film about women’s struggles during menstruation; and several more addressing issues such as transgender in Laxmii.
He does this again in Sarfira, in which he plays the founder of Deccan Airlines, GR Gopinath, who persisted in his dream of making air flights accessible to the poorest villagers.
For some reason, the name of the protagonist in the movie is changed to
Vir Jagannath Mhatre, who leaves the Indian Air Force along with two friends after being disciplined for not following the rules.
Led by Mhatre, they try to break the monopoly of the big airline run by Paresh Goswami (Paresh Rawal), whose influence extends to everyone in the aviation industry, including the airline regulators and government.
Persisting in his dream, Mhatre tries for many years to convince investors and get a licence, but is thwarted at every attempt by the cunning Goswami, played convincingly by veteran Rawal.
Mhatre’s failure to hold down a job and reliance on the income generated from the successful bakery business run by his wife Rani (Radhika Madan) brings about some tension as well. Madan shines as a feisty, yet very supportive wife.
Director Sudha Kongara in her determination to show the repeated failures before the film’s eventual predictable climax of success to get ordinary villagers to experience flying for just one rupee on an inaugural flight, does tend to make this a little overbearingly repetitive.
She does succeed, however, in not making Sarfira just another rags-toriches story that it could easily have become, but rather a reflection on the human faults of greed, corruption and even class divides, as opposed to the positive human characteristics of determination and compassion.