AKIRA (U/A)
Director: A.R. Murugadoss
Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Anurag Kashyap, Konkona Sensharma
Running time: 140 minutes

The best scene in A.R. Murugadoss’s new film has Sonakshi Sinha’s Akira hiding in the college canteen from a bunch of campus thugs. As they close in on her, she tells them in an apologetic-squeaky voice that they should just walk away otherwise she would again be suspended from college for beating people up.

If a film could score just on its protagonist’s attitude, Akira is a winner from first frame to last. Remade from the 2011 Tamil film Mouna Guru, where a reclusive but violent boy is caught in the middle of a police corruption deal, Murugadoss (Ghajini) and his writers turn the whole premise on its head by making the hero a girl. A girl who is not just championing women’s rights but also fighting for everything a Bollywood hero fights against.

As a kid in Jodhpur, Akira hit back at the goons who threw acid on the face of a girl at the bus stand. She was sent to a juvenile correctional facility which made her quieter and seemingly more violent from inside. By the time she shifts to Mumbai and gets admitted into a college there, Akira (Sonakshi Sinha) is like this blazing ball of fire ready to burn everyone around her.

And the man who decides to put out that fire with gasoline is ACP Govinda Rane (Anurag Kashyap), who is the ultimate epitome of corruption among police ranks. Almost like the Harvey Keitel-starrer Bad Lieutenant, bedding hookers, smoking joints, running over homeless people, it’s like a 24-hour party in police uniform.

So, when Rane and three of his juniors chance upon a big bag of cash at an accident spot, they decide to keep it, but the word soon tumbles out and like tumbleweed reaches a student of the same college Akira goes to. One plot twist follows another and finally after some logic lapses, Akira gets to know a little too much for Rane’s comfort leading to a direct showdown between his force and her. Just her.

The first half moves at a terrific pace and the flashback and the exposition never disrupt the pacing. It’s in the second half when a lot of events are explained a second time for the benefit of the good cop (Konkona Sensharma in a pregnant avatar ala Marge in Fargo) that things stall and stutter. When you show something that the audience already knows, there’s always the risk of the attention levels dropping rapidly.

The asylum sequences are a little too languid but things get back on track in the climax where Akira again goes into Kill Bill mode, kicking and punching anything and anyone which comes within her reach. There’s something incredibly satisfying in seeing an Indian woman beating the devils out of a bunch of rascals and the best scenes of Akira are easily the ones where she lets her arms and legs do the talking.

Those hand-to-hand combat set-pieces are also the big highs for Sonakshi who looks very comfortable in her action avatar. She’s got this wicked, pugnacious attitude right through the film and it works really well for Akira. It’s such a welcome break from the kind of films she’s been doing. After Lootera, this is the film Sonakshi would like to mention on her CV.

Anurag Kashyap as the main baddie is such an inspired piece of casting. Usually reduced to cameos, the filmmaker is deliciously nasty and so much fun to watch. Konkona has very little to do other than look intelligent but that pregnant body language deserves a separate film all right.

The film has no songs — just a couple of lines stream somewhere in the second half — and no love story — a special thank you for that — but Akira is just the kind of satisfying movie experience which the Bolly doctor ordered.

First NH10 and now this, it’s time the Indian woman led from the front and kicked some serious ass.

Pratim D. Gupta
Is Akira Bolly’s best film on she power? Tell t2@abp.in