Akshay Kumar’s film can’t exactly rise above the clouds
The two competing stars – Saga and lead actor Akshay Kumar – jostle for supremacy SurfersSudha Kongara’s own National Award winning remake Sorrai Potru. The problem is that they pull in different directions to the detriment of a film that is somewhat undone by even a single lack of subtlety.
The fictional biopic of Air Deccan founder GR Gopinath doesn’t rise to the heights of seafaring in dramatizing the birth pains of a low-cost airline launched at the turn of the millennium. worse, Surfers Abundant in the passages which sink into the mossy water.
The much-awarded and acclaimed Tamil original didn’t shy away from over-dramatic, tear-jerking punches. In the Hindi iteration, which otherwise stays true to the screenplay and surface textures of the 2020 film, the tone fluctuates a lot and the story feels and sounds more sinister.
Too much, especially melodrama that takes its inspiration from real life, is inevitably counterproductive. It’s definitely in Surfers. The hero’s mission is noble and egalitarian. The forces hostile to him – these are people and a system that is self-serving and stable – have no redeeming qualities. And to be sure, everything that can go wrong for a crusader for equality 35,000 feet above the ground goes wrong by way of begging belief.
The narrative is black and white. It has no room for shades of gray. Relentlessly poignant, the characters engage in declarative exchanges with each other rather than resorting to simple, relational communication. They make noise. They are Hectors. They adopt an angry posture to indicate their position on the class divide that Nayak is about to dismantle in an important sector of the economy.
The story is undoubtedly compelling. A man from an underprivileged background – he is the only son of a schoolteacher in a village in Maharashtra where no trains stop – battles deep-rooted prejudices and huge obstacles to chase his dream of launching an airline that is, in his own words, an Udupi restaurant in the air.
Surfers Not exactly rising above the clouds though as Akshay Kumar plunges into a role that is far more fleshed out than any he has played in recent years. The hammy bit is hard to ignore, though Surfers She has moments that allow the star to show off her stuff more than she usually does.
He plays Veer Mathere, an action man opposite his estranged father. He left home after the fall. He received a short service commission in the Indian Air Force as a pilot officer. Stepping in for her mother (Seema Biswas, Urvashi who played the role Sorrai Potru) pine for him and certainly not silence. Actually no one does anything in silence Surfers.
Disgruntled with his commanding officer (R. Sarathkumar), Veer, along with two colleagues, Chaitanya “Che” Rao (Krishnakumar Balasubramanian reprising his role as Sorarai Potru) and Sam (Saurav Goyal), quit the job and take his flight to save money. The plan sets the dynamic for everyone.
He goes toe-to-toe with his one-time idol Paresh Goswami’s (Paresh Rawal, unchanged from Tamil original) Jazz Airlines, a company that enjoys a complete monopoly on the airline business. A throwaway line hints that the super-successful entrepreneur himself is from a humble background, but there isn’t much else in the script that can help the audience get a rounded idea of who the man really is.
Goswami, who likes everything else Surfers The script, inscribed with very broad strokes, is against the idea of letting ordinary people board the plane. In every scene the character is in, he makes a single point in multiple ways – running an airline is no child’s play and high flying is not for the riff-raff. Veer takes it upon himself to prove him wrong.
No matter how bad things come for him, Veer has his wife Rani Divekar (Radhikka Madan) as a sage mentor. He owns a bakery and plans to expand its size and scope. When the chips are down and domestic strife threatens to derail their marriage, she takes the reins into her own hands.
The chemistry between Akshay Kumar and Radhikka Madan is nowhere near the self-driven kind that Suriya and Aparna Balamurali achieved. that drags Surfers It scores a few points by giving the lady of the wedding the upper hand even when things really matter, down several notches.
But no other character is portrayed so sharply. The star of the show is Akshay Kumar. He doesn’t concede much ground to the supporting characters. Veer’s mother, his childhood pal Mandar (Anil Charanjith) or Rani’s maternal uncle (Jay Upadhyay) – who have been infinitely more influential in Tamil films – merely hover in the background.
That goes without saying Surfers deviates in any major way from Sorrai Potru. It is a scene-to-scene rehash though the primary location has been shifted from a village in Tamil Nadu and Chennai to a village in Maharashtra and Mumbai.
The names of the characters have changed accordingly – Nedumaran Rajangam becomes Veer Jagannath Mathere and Sundari Rani – but everything else Surfers – The sequence, the situation, the dialogue – exactly the same.
One, therefore, wonders why the remake was necessary at all, especially when the dubbed Hindi version Sorrai Potru Available on a streaming platform for years.
A notable similarity between the two relates to their shallow behavior at color angles. Both are in Nedumaran Sorrai Potru and Vir In Surfers Be willing to break not only the cost barrier, but also the caste barrier. The film constantly harps on the possibility of air travel – the plot pivots around it – but the other important C-word is uttered only once without creating a meaningful context for it elsewhere in the film.
If you have seen Sorrai Potru, Surfers No surprises will spring. If you’re not a fan of Akshay Kumar and don’t mind an over-the-top, over-the-top drama, this might be worth a trip to a multiplex near you.
