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Holiday – A Soldier is Never Off Duty

  • Film
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
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Time Out says

3 out of 5 stars

Bollywood’s creative drought continues with yet another remake of a Tamil potboiler. Director AR Murugadoss, who also directed the 2012 Kollywood original (‘Thuppakki’), relocates the action to Mumbai but the dosa-thin plot remains the same.

On vacation from the Indian army, Captain Viraat’s (Akshay Kumar) holiday turns into a one-man obsession to save India’s maximum city, Mumbai, from a series of planned terrorist attacks. When he is not chasing, kicking, chopping or shooting the suspects, Virat finds time to go bride-hunting with his annoyingly sweet family. He is introduced to the coy Saiba (Sonakshi Sinha) who he rejects for being too docile. Virat changes his mind when he realises Saiba is really a feisty female boxer who likes to smoke occasionally and drink ‘red wine and vodka’.

Fans of commercial Hindi cinema will not be disappointed as this violent film incorporates all the elements of the familiar masala formula. Pleasingly, though, the focus is mainly on the race-against-time element with other customary distractions like romance and comedy taking a back seat. A-lister action hero Akshay Kumar proves again that he is better at stunts than emoting, while Sinha’s role is simply to look pretty and dance during the  songs. But this unduly lengthy film would have been an even more effective and engaging thriller if the director had dropped the subplots altogether. 

Written by Anil Sinanan

Release Details

  • Release date:Friday 6 June 2014
  • Duration:161 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:A.R. Murugadoss
  • Screenwriter:A.R. Murugadoss
  • Cast:
    • Akshay Kumar
    • Sonakshi Sinha
    • Govinda
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