Review of Holiday- A Soldier Is Never Off Duty

Holiday is action thriller where the story may not be always logical but it will keep you entertaining if you are a fan of hardcore commercial Bollywood movies. It has all the ingredients Action,Emotion,Drama,Romance,Comedy,Song and Dance everything you need in a masala movie.

It is the story of a soldier from Indian Army , Virat Bakshi (Akshay Kumar) who has came to Mumbai to meet his family members on a month long holiday. Soon he gets introduced to a girl Sahibaa(Sonakshi Sinha) for marriage. Just when Virat is enjoying his holiday and new found ladylove he suddenly gets some trace of some terrorist activities by a group of sleeper cells. As the tagline promises a soldier is never off duty so in spite of being on holiday Virat starts investigations on his own with the help of his Sub inspector friend Mukund (Sumeet Raghavan) and soon he founds that there is someone who is operating the sleeper cells. Then starts the mind game between Virat and the Sleeper Cell head (Farhad Daaruwala) to trap each other. Finally how Virat saves India and Indian people from the terror attacks forms the climax of the movie.

The story has lots of loopholes which continuously tries to prove its leading man as an over intelligent army officer. But in spite of that the screenplay has been written so well by the director himself that it keeps the audiences interest level intact. The mind game between the hero and the villan is very engaging and full of surprising twists. The only problem is the length which could have been reduced by cutting at least one or two songs which pop ups from anywhere anytime. The romantic track between Virat and Sahibaa looks forced as it acts as a roadblock to the main subject.The dialogues have punchlines for the hero but for rest of the characters it is just functional.

As a director A.R.Murugadoss has done justice with his concept. He has not made any unnecessary change to his original south indian movie "Thupakki" but still the movie looks convincing as a standalone Hindi movie. He has shown confidence once again in his second Hindi film after "Ghajini". But unlike "Ghajini" this time the romantic angle has not been blended well with the action.

There is no doubt that Akshay Kumar is the main highlight of this action thriller. Akshay Kumar looks good and perfectly fit for the role of a soldier. His stunts are too good and shows his martial art skills very well. He has shown his comic timing too in the lighter moments. He has brilliantly portrayed a street smart intelligence officer. 

Just like her other movies Sonakshi Sinha has nothing much to do in this movie too. The only change here is her costumes , this time she has tried to shed her desi girl image by wearing some western outfits. Other than that she is just same with her any other character. She looks good, dances well and her chemistry with her leading man is good.

Among the rest of the cast , Farhad Daruwaala has made a good debut as the main villain , the head of the sleeper cells. He has fit body and good intense look only he need to improve his dialogue delivery. He has good scope in action movies.
Sumeet Raghavan the comic actor from television, has done a good job as Virat's friend Mukund. His comic timing is good.



Among the technical team two fields should be given full credit.First one is the actions which has been designed by Greg Powell and Anl Arasu. There is no doubt that the action sequences are the big USP of the movie.Another technical department which is outstanding is cinematography by N Nataraja Subramanium. He has captured the chase sequences and action sequences very well. The rest of the technical team is just okay.

The music is by Pritam and there are two hit songs "Tu Hi To Hai" and "Shairaana" but the songs have been forced into the story line so it adds nothing extra to the movie, rather sometime it looks boring. The climax song "Ashq Na Ho" has some good lyrics by Irshad Kamil and it adds emotional value for the family audiences.

On a whole Holiday is a good entertaining film. If you are an Akshay Kumar fan or you like action thrillers then you must watch this. Rest of the people can give it a try it is much better than Akshay Kumar's last few films. But if you want a logical story then it is not for you.