Movie Review: Akira

Movie Review: ‘Akira’

Rating: 3/5

Director: A. R. Murugadoss

Cast: Sonakshi Sinha, Anurag Kashyap, Konkona Sen Sharma, Atul Kulkarni

Akira Movie Trailer

Akira has a fast-moving and thoughtfully interwoven story which can be complicated to understand if you miss the important parts.

The film has an overabundance of drama in it, and this is not helped by the spoon-feeding dialogues that have characters doing their own expositions at times. At one point of time, Akira compares herself with Jesus Christ in the most cringy scene in the entire film. That being the worst part of Akira, its best aspect lies in the blazing fast set pieces and allow you no time to stop and think. The story takes many turns, and their unexpected nature is what keeps you invested in the film. However, in this process, the script overlooks the characters and gives you nothing to get emotionally involved in.

AR Murugadoss has focused all his attention in making Akira an outright entertainer. And in the process, he has chosen to overlook deeper implications that could have been pulled out of this story. He handles his action sequences well, but there’s no freshness here.  The first 10 minutes of this film have been wonderfully shot and edited though. Lastly, the background score is to the point and well constructed.

Sonakshi Sinha really doesn’t bring anything extraordinary to the table. Her acting is plain average and is given a bit of much needed shine by the action sequences.

As for Anurag Kashyap, he has come a long way from his first full-fledged role in Shagird. His controlled and natural demeanor gives his performance a Hollywood-ish aura that’s a good break from the very archetypal acting by others. His character seems pretty believable, and makes for a good villain to thrust our hate on.

Konkona Sen Sharma doesn’t have a big role to play length-wise, but hers is quite an important role. She does full justice to it with her usual acting style. A noteworthy performance from the other cast is that of Lokesh Vijay Gupte, who brilliantly portrays the corrupt cop in ACP Rane’s gang.

Akira is an entertainer. It will surely manage to get you intrigued right from the start. But there’s too many theatrics to sit through here. Plus, the script as well as the acting performance are not strong enough to make you invested in the lead character, Akira.