When to AI clean vs. ADR for a powerful, but noisy, performance?

Hey everyone,

I'm coloring a short film right now shot on an ALEXA Mini, and we had this incredible, one-take performance. The actor just nailed it, genuine, raw emotion. The director loves it, I love it, everyone on set knew it was magic. Problem is, we were shooting in a pretty open-air location, near some road construction, and despite our best efforts with an MKH 416 boom and a lav on the actor, the ambient noise is... significant. Think constant low rumble, plus a few unexpected honks.

I've been playing around with some AI-powered audio cleanup tools, and they're impressive at reducing the worst of it. But sometimes it feels like it's sucking some of the life out of the voice too. The alternative is full-on ADR, which could clean it up perfectly, but I'm terrified of losing that original, lightning-in-a-bottle performance. We just wouldn't get that same energy again.

In a real-world scenario like this, with a truly powerful but noisy original take, what's your metric for making the final call? How do you weigh AI cleanup limitations against the risk of losing performance through ADR?