This is another one of those movies, like Hero: Love Story of a Spy or Gadar: Ek Prem Katha, where I HAFT to say the whole name!  I can’t bring myself to just say “Holiday”, I have to drop  my voice and add “a soldier is never off duty.”

Now, this was a requested review, but I am pretty sure it was just requested because someone is a massive fan of Akshay Kumar?  Not because someone thinks it is an actual high quality film with intriguing elements that warrant discussion.  Because it really isn’t.  Which means I don’t have much to talk about, so this is going to be a pretty short review!

I am assuming this was recommended by an Akshay fan, because it is definitely a movie that can only be enjoyed by Akshay fans!  It’s a very AKSHAY movie.  He gets all the cool lines and wins all the fights and does everything perfectly.  Which is also why I am pretty sure this must be a Southern remake.

In Hindi action films, every once in a while, our hero has to actually make an effort.  Like, he will think REALLY HARD before solving the villains plan.  Or he will make a mistake.  Or he will get his heart broken.  Or be sad.  But in the Telugu films I have seen, none of that!  He always knows what he is doing, he is always happy and confident and wise and in charge, he always knows he can get the girl, and he always makes the right choice in a fight.

It also means that there isn’t a lot of acting challenges here.  Sonakshi, as heroine, actually has more notes to play than Akshay as hero.  She gets to be shy and angry and excited and nervous and happy, all sorts of things!  Akshay just gets to be “cool”.

 

But Akshay is a cool person, so it works!  And he continues to be the best fighter in Hindi films.  Oh, and he does things thing where he pulls on the left shoulder of his shirt before a fight.  I think to loosen the fabric and free up that army for movement?  Is this something that he does in every movie and I’ve never noticed it before?

The plot isn’t the greatest part of this film.  Or rather, the plot as a whole isn’t the greatest part.  As a series of short action movies it is great!  The bad guys will plan something surprising, we (the audience) will think they have succeeded, and then TWIST!  Akshay knew what was happening and could fix it all along.  Over and over and over again, whether it is a series of bombs going off in Bombay, or his sister being kidnapped, or himself being kidnapped, it will all work out fine!  He has a secret plan because he is the BEST.  If I saw each of these segments on their own it would be MINDBLOWING AWESOME FANTASTIC DONE (just like Anupum Kehr says when he meets Kajol in DDLJ).  But, seeing them all in a row, it gets a bit repetitive and predictable.

The other big problem is that the bad guys don’t really have an overarching plan.  In Mr. India, for instance, Mogambo’s plan was to take over the world from his secret underground lair.  Now, that makes sense!  That I can grasp!  But in this one, the bad guys have a series of “sleeper cells” in Bombay setting off bombs.  Why?  Well, to make an issue of it so the Assistant Secretary of Defense can solve it and be promoted to the Secretary of Defense.  Why?  So they can get more sleeper cells placed into the Indian Army.  Why?  No reason!  Just for kicks, to see if they can. (Also, I don’t think you have to wait until one of your guys is the Secretary of Defense to be able to get a sleeper cell in the army.  Pretty sure the Secretary of Defense has better things to do be in charge of recruitment and background checks for random footsoldiers.)

Oh!  Speaking of that!  Akshay isn’t a random foot soldier?  At one point way at the beginning, he gives a long speech to a bad guy he is about to kill revealing that he is actually a specialist and counter-terrorist something who was embedded in the army, and not even his friends and family know what he really is.  But then it never comes up again.

This is kind of a big deal!  Not in terms of the character, but what the character means.  Is it that the average army guy is so pure and decent and powerful, even just while on vacation (a soldier is never off duty), he can solve a whole terrorist plot?  Or is it that he just APPEARS to be an average army guy, but is actually something more than that, India’s own “sleeper cell”?  I don’t know!  It only comes up once and there is no follow up!

It’s too bad all of these things fall apart, because there are a couple of strong narrative bits that work.  Sonakshi is great, totally love the light-hearted way her romance is treated, and the back and forth and back and forth with her works really well (he meets her and doesn’t like her, then meets her again and does like her but she is mad at him, and then they finally come together but have to break up the engagement she made in the meantime).  Oh, and also Govinda is there, and is great.  I can’t really take Govinda for a whole movie, but in little pieces, he is wonderful.  And he is great here, playing the overly confident suitor.  And their love songs are super catchy!

I also really like the way they set up the terrorists as investigating and trying to find Akshay just as Akshay is trying to find them.  The whole idea of a secret war between these two extra-governmental parties, that’s cool!  And the terrorists are actually smart, which is a nice change, using logical thinking and deduction instead of just blowing things up like in other movies.  Of course, they still can’t win anything, because they are terrorists, and Akshay is the Hero, and the Hero always wins.

I like Akshay’s family too, I liked that they didn’t revere him or treat him as the honored eldest son or anything like that.  There was a lot of teasing and disrespect there.  Although, the ages don’t quite work!  Because Akshay is oooooooooold.  How can he have two teenage younger sisters?  Shouldn’t they be at least married or in college by now?  What kind of an age range is going on in this family?  Their son is like 40 and their daughter is a teenager?  Or is Akshay supposed to be 25?  Because NO WAY is that believable!

Hmm, what else?  Oh!  The view of the police was really interesting!  That they were weak and less skilled and less brave than the army.  That’s a view that is increasingly popular in America right now, after 9/11 we all got very pro-troops.  There is a theory that this attitude is contributing to the current spat of police violence.  Because the police began acting more and more like the army, since people like (and give funding) to the army.  The federal government gives all kinds of tanks and machine guns and crazy equipment that police departments don’t need to them, and the police start thinking they are in “enemy territory” and treating all the citizens they are supposed to protect like enemy combatants.

Which is the explicit philosophy of this movie.  That the “war” has come home, and everyone should be ready to kill or be killed.  The “soft” police are useless because they don’t have the proper warzone mindset.  It’s kind of an unusual attitude for an Indian movie!  Usually, the police are awesome and the ones with the warzone mindset that the citizens can’t understand, no army necessary (Like in Singham Returns, Dabangg 2, etc).  Or, alternatively, a random citizen who has been damaged by crime is the one better able to solve the problems of society than the police (Ek Villain, Gabbar is Back, etc.).  The army kind of isn’t even a consideration.  It’s just the cops and/or the citizens.

Actually, army films in general are kind of unusual.  Sure, there is the occasional LOC: Kargil or Lakshya.  But compared to the number of police films, or secret agent films, it’s pretty low.  I would say that maybe this film is a sign of the changing times, that we will get a whole spat of hero army movies, but it came out 2 years ago, and I don’t think we’ve had another one like it since then.