Holiday Review: Akshay Kumar shines, movie doesn’t!

Vipul Shah and Akshay Kumar have a decent track record with hits like Waqt, Namaste London and Singh is Kingh behind them. So when they team up with the director for ‘Ghajini’ to remake the Tamil Blockbuster Thupakki in Hindi you expect it to work wonders. The makers have promised a taut thriller which can appeal to the masses as well as the classes. Do the promises hold true? Lets find out!

Story: Captain Virat Bakshi (Akshay Kumar) is a soldier in the Indian army and goes back home on holiday. His family members coax him to meet a girl (Sonakshi) for marriage whom he instantly refuses because she is too submissive. But when he discovers that she is actually a boxer his views change and he immediately runs back to her. Meanwhile, his duties as a soldier come back to the fore and he is entrusted with the duty of deactivating terrorist sleeper cells threatening to blow up the city of Mumbai. A game of cat and mouse ensues leading to a predictably action-filled climax.

When a director makes the same film in a different language you’d expect that the loopholes in the previous film would be taken care of. But alas, AR Murugadoss has no such plans as he makes almost an identical frame-by-frame remake of his own film. Holiday turns out to be a case of a good film lost in translation. It has too many subplots for a taut thriller and the romantic angle is given undue importance. The pace of the film is acceptable, though. But the problem is the faux pas patriotism and the fake realistic approach, and the regressively misogynist storyline.

Holiday Movie Review

A film like Holiday needs to hit all the right notes in the technical department and the crew try their best to make Holiday look like a slick action thriller. The action scenes are well-choreographed. The editing is lax but the cinematography suits the nature of the film. The music by Pritam is a big letdown and you come out with only two memorable songs – Shaayrana and Ashq Na Ho. Background music is okay.

Acting: Not many can match Akshay Kumar in the action department and when he is at it, he leaves you spellbound. But the tragedy of Holiday is the over-reliance on Akshay’s acting abilities rather than his action capabilities. Sonakshi Sinha has played the same character that she has played in almost all of her films barring Lootera. She doesn’t have much to do and her pairing with Akshay has become irritating now. Sumeet Raghavan does his role a lot of justice and provides the comic relief. The main antagonist of the film Freddy Daruwala is the worst find of the year. He can’t act even if his life were dependant on it. Vidyut Jamwal would have been perfect if he was cast in his role. Govinda makes an alluring cameo.

Conclusion: ‘Holiday – A solider is never off duty’ could have been an intelligent commercial entertainer but it fails to live up to its potential. Regardless of the shady intentions of the makers, the film does have its moments where the heightened stakes work well. Holiday had the potential to be so much more than a strictly-one-time-watch film.

Box office: Due to the lack of high voltage promotions, Holiday will take an average opening at best. But due to the lack of competition and the favourable release period, Holiday might turn out to be a decent grosser.

Positives:

• Akshay Kumar is outstanding
• Sumeet Raghavan is impressive, provides comic relief
• The action scenes are well choreographed
• Background score is decent

Negatives:

• Sonakshi Sinha is again typecast. The Akshay – Sonakshi pairing is getting boring now!
• Faux pax patriotism
• Tacky dialogues and fake realism
• Music is disappointing
• Loopholes in the story are too many

Rating: