Akira is a movie with a lot of potential. Director AR Murugadoss has changed the protagonist of the original Tamil movie Mouna Guru from a man to a woman played by Sonakshi Sinha and the result is refreshing. The movie starts with Akira and two other men captured by 3 policemen who take them to a forest. Akira is held at gunpoint and that’s when we cut to the flashback of a young Akira who learns how to fight because of an unfortunate incident. She then grows up and moves from Jodhpur to Mumbai. Her brother is spineless, her sister-in-law is mean to her and her mom is hapless. The only family member who she was close to was her father played by Atul Kulkarni who dies before she grows up.
The story is decent and Sonakshi is very good in her action sequences. Especially in one scene, where she is cowering when surrounded by college bullies. They think she’s doing that because she’s afraid of them, but she says she’s worried as she might beat them to pulp and proceeds to do exactly that. Anurag Kashyap is a good find as a corrupt policeman who treats others like vermin. He provides the film with a lot of dark humour which should have been used more generously.
Konkona Sen Sharma sadly is the most underused actress in the film. She plays Rabia, a pregnant and honest policewoman who is instrumental in solving the case in which Akira gets involved. Amit Sadh is a potential love interest, but he doesn’t have much to do. Honestly, the first half of the film is quite intriguing, but the movie dips after the interval when the humour dries away and the action scenes are few and far in between.
There are barely any songs, which works for a film this serious. The story and screenplay by Santha Kumar (and additional screenplay by AR Murugadoss) is alright, but it doesn’t hold up in the second half. There are also glaring mistakes like a man mistaking a men’s washroom as a ladies washroom despite the fact that the urinals are extremely visible, or that Akira’s sister-in-law is wearing a nightie when there’s a party at the house.
Another problem with the movie is that Akira’s ‘partner-in-crime’ during the second half is a mentally challenged person, who is put in horrible situations just so that Akira can get by. If a person has been put under psychiatric care for two years, how is she capable of driving like Vin Diesal on cocaine, or following orders given by Akira, which would need a decent amount of intelligence? The cinematography by R.D.Rajasekhar is slick but the editing by A.Sreekar Prasad is a little erratic at times.
Overall, Akira is worth a watch, mostly because we finally have a female protagonist who takes no prisoners and is genuinely able to help herself. There is no ‘hero’ who becomes her knight in shining armor. Even at the end it is a woman who eventually rescues her. More of this please!