Review on the Film Holiday. Review on Holiday

Holiday’, the official remake of the monster Tamil hit ‘Thuppaki’, gives Akshay Kumar a chance to return to full combat mode. He plays a patriotic soldier willing to stretch a few rules in the line of duty, whether it is wielding sharp shears on a suspect’s finger, or shooting bad guys point blank. he’s all right; the moment he gets romancing and joshing, he slides. The cop fulfils the role of faithful jester and companion.

There is also the only job of the leading lady(Sonakshi Sinha), who wears boxing gloves-and-tight-shorts in one scene and a flowing dress in another, and is the Hindi film equivalent of the brainless bimbette, pulled out only when the plot remembers that it needs a song-and-dance.

On a break from active duty, Captain Virat Bakshi(Akshay Kumar) finds himself up against the mastermind(Daruwala) of a terrorist outfit, who is busily planting ‘sleeper cells’ through the country to be activated when the time is ripe. So, we have Virat careering around Mumbai, leading his men into hair-brained ambushes in which people are dispatched speedily. Other bad guys are tortured and dumped with impunity, and no one suspects our man as he sets about cleaning up the rot.

Akshay can still deliver a perfect roundhouse kick but he has been looking his age for a while now. He’s slim and fit and agile, and sports a sharp Army-style buzz cut, but he makes everything familiar. Akshay doesn’t get to roll out enough fresh tricks here.

As the brainy-and-brawny villain, Daruwala has not even an iota of menace as he made at least the action bits fun. With the bad guy making the running, only picks up momentum towards the end. The second half has more things going on, with a couple of interesting sequences. And the bone-crusher of a climax made me sit up a bit, but it came after too much same old-same old.