Holiday : Terrific Action movie with Stale Love Story
A. R. Murugadoss is a big name in South Film Industry. In Hindi Film Industry too, he made his place in history through his “Ghajini”, the first film to cross 200 cr. After Amir Khan, now he ties up with Akshay Kumar and brings his new offering “Holiday : A Soldier is Never Off Duty” (Yeah, that’s the full name of the movies. As big as its duration)
Story of Holiday can be given in a brief. It’s about an Armyman, Captain Viraat Bakshi (Akshay Kumar) who comes to his home in Mumbai on Holidays to get married. His meeting with Nisha (Sonakshi Sinha) is arranged by is parents but Viraat rejects her initially. While he falls in her love again and tries to woe her, he roams around with his sub-inspector friend (Sumeet Raghavan). Once, while helping him in his work, Viraat finds a sleeper cell agent and gets sucked into a mission of diffusing their mission. Can he do it? How he does it? Is he able to win over his girlfriend? All this and more is answered in the movie.
Story, Screenplay, Dialogues and Direction is credited to A. R. Murugadoss. The man sure knows his art and craft. He has a good story to tell but this time he could not bring the magic of “Ghajini” into screenplay. Ghajini had great love story. In fact, whenever that movie comes on television, I prefer to watch the love story part of it only. “Holiday” lacks in the lite portions of the screenplay. Other gags too are not funny enough. But Situation is totally different in the Action, Suspense and Thrilling part of the Screenplay. Things are tight and edge of the seat here. Audience is engrossed in these scenes. However, his efforts of emphasizing on sacrifices by army has gone overboard and only few may like that melodrama.
Again in the Direction Department, Murugadoss creates mixed experience. Surprisingly, he has chosen a very slow pace for such an action film which had the potential to be taught action thriller. With a better pace sans the songs (particularly in second half), the Director should have told his editor Amitabh Shukla to reduce the film duration from 170 min to around 120-130.
On the performance side, it is an out and out Akshay Kumar talent showcase. He looks young and fresh, dances energetically, acts smartly and does unbelievable stunts with extra ordinary ease. We can not help but like him. He makes us impressed by his attitude, acting and sincerity. A good film from Akshay Kumar after long time. Freddy Daruwala plays the cool headed, clever antagonist with matching finesse. He has very less dialogs and that’s a good part in a debut film to show sheer acting prowess. Watch both of them, especially Akki, in the climax fight.
Sonakshi Sinha is same as usual but here she gets to do way less than her other films.
Sumeet Raghvan is good as the sub-inspector friend. I was happy to see Govinda at the start of the movie. But he’s totally wasted. Govinda sure deserve better and bigger role. All other cast does justice to their roles.
Pritam Chakraborty’s Music lacks chartbuster songs and acts as a big hindrance in the already slow paced movie. Background score by Dileep Subramaniam is good. Production design by Sukant Panigraphy is excellent and so is the Cinematography by N Natarajan Subramaniam. The highlight of the movie is action. Hollywood Action Director Greg Powell shows why he was hired to do this job and delivers spell binding stunts.
Overall, an action packed film with sluggish pace and ineffective love story, Holiday is still able to entertain the audience.
Recommendation : A must watch for action lovers. Good watch for Masala film followers. Strictly passable for art and serious film affectionados. Overall, a clean movie which can be watched with family. Just bear with the slow pace.
