Akshay's Mallu film remake a dampener

Even when the original 'Pokkiri Raja' was released in Kerala and all across the world in 2010, the protagonist Mammootty received mixed response for his role in the film. However, the box office response was favourable and it went on to hit the bull's eye.

As an artiste, Mammootty has always attracted a fair share of comments every time he takes up a role and when it fails to adequately challenge his immense histrionic abilities.

This has been a regular feature over three decades and more as he ruled over the Malayalam film industry by showcasing an amazing variety of roles and characters.

Not that it would have worried the Hindi counterpart of his, Akshay Kumar, who has often breezed through such southern remakes and also making it work at the cash counters. So three years after the original Malayalam film hit the silver screens, in 2013, the 'Khiladi' Kumar came up with his 'Boss'.

Strangely, the references to this Hindi film – an action comedy genre - and its origin state that it was only inspired by the southern version and hence not a frame-to-frame remake.

If it was Shriya Saran who was alongside Mammootty in the Kerala original (incidentally also her debut in that film industry) Aditi Rao Hydari was seen with Akshay. It had an impressive list of stars like Mithun Chakraborty, Johnny Lever etc. The initial narration was done by Amitabh Bachchan which was yet another USP.

Despite the film getting a global release and also being the first Indian film to be released in Latin America and other countries, the poor entertainment quotient and below-average response from the critics and the public later turned it out to be a dud.

The Pakistani paper 'Dawn' called it an 'idiosyncratic masala fare' while the others said it was the screen presence of Akshay Kumar which saved it to an extent.

Yet the film made on a budget of Rs 70 crore just earned a revenue of Rs 84 crore, not enough to be called a hit in the industry parlance.