Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty

Plot

Virat Bakshi (Akshay Kumar), Captain in D.I.A., a wing of Indian Army, returns to his home in Mumbai on a holiday. On his arrival, his parents rush him to see Saiba Thapar (Sonakshi Sinha), who they wanted him to marry. But Virat rejects her with an excuse that she is old fashioned and not his type. On the contrary, Saiba is a professional boxer, and is completely modern in her outlook. Virat notices her in a boxing match and falls for her instantly.

One day, while traveling in a bus with his friend sub-inspector Mukund "Makhiya" Deshmukh (Sumeet Raghavan), Virat witnesses a bomb explosion killing innocent people. Virat manages to capture the man who planted the bomb but he escapes from the hospital with the help of a police officer. Virat kidnaps the terrorist again and also forces corrupt police officer Ashok Gaikwad (Gireesh Sahedev) to commit suicide. He later discovers that a terrorist group has planned, serial blasts in Mumbai in a couple of days with the help of 12 sleeper agents. Along with his fellow Army officers and Mukund, Virat manages to track these bombers and kills them before they could trigger the bombs.

When the leader of these sleeper cells (Freddy Daruwala) finds out about the team of officers involved in the failure of the terrorist attack, he begins to target their families by kidnapping someone close to them. When Virat realizes the plan, he substitutes one of the girl to be kidnapped, with his younger sister Priti. Using his pet dog Rocky and his sisters dupatta, he manages to reach the terrorists hideout. He eliminates all the terrorists and rescues all the victims including his sister, who was about to be killed after Virats bluff was exposed. Virat also captures Asif Ali (Dipendra Sharma), who was the leader of the group but later kills him on realizing that Asif is just the second-in-command of the sleeper cell.

When this attack fails, the terrorist leader decides to target Virat himself. He kills Kapil, one of the army officers and forces Virat to surrender. Virat decides to sacrifice his life and plans a suicide attack by instructing Mukund and his fellow officers to follow him via a tracking chip inserted in his arm and plant a bomb at the terrorists hideout. Virat then drives to a port in various cars, as told by the leader and ends up on a ship full of terrorists. To his surprise, Virat finds out that the cars he was asked to drive had bombs in them, which will frame him and his team as terrorists and also boost their plans to recruit sleeper cells in Indian Army with the help of Joint Defense Secretary of India — Mr. Alvin Dsouza (Zakir Hussain), who is also amember of this terrorist group. Virat had a one on one fight with the leader and escapes on a boat before the ship explodes, also later killing the leader. The film ends with Virat forcing Alvin Dsouza to commit suicide and later returning to border along with his team.

Cast

Production

The films production commenced in 2013 with the working title of Pistol under the banner of Hari Om Entertainment and Sunshine Pictures. The soundtrack is composed by Pritam Chakraborty and the stunt coordinator of the film is Greg Powell.

The production budget of Holiday is around ?30 crore (US$4.7 million) without Akshay Kumar remuneration, print and advertising costs. According to director A. R. Murugadoss, Akshays role is that of an Army officer for which Akshay lost some weight to fit in the role and to look 12 years younger from his real biological age. Kumar also sported a crew-cut hairstyle for his role. Whilst Sonakshi will play a role of boxer and Virat (Kumars) love interest Saiba. Model and debutant Freddy Daruwala will play the main antagonist pitted against Kumar.

The film was originally scheduled for a release in early May 2014, which would have clashed with the release of Action Jackson. However, Action Jackson released on 5 December 2014, while Holiday released on 6 June 2014.

Music

The soundtrack was composed by Pritam and Kaushik Dutta and The lyrics were written by Irshad Kamil and Sukumar Dutta.

Critical reception

The movie has received positive reviews from the critics. ABP News similarly rated it 4.5/5,calling it a"fast paced,exhilarating roller coaster ride" Taran Adarsh gave 4/5 and states that it is a slick action-thriller that keeps you engrossed, enthralled and captivated all through, thanks to its fascinating premise and a watertight, razor-sharp screenplay.
The Times of India gave the movie 3.5 rating describing it as This one applauds the jawans who live in the jaws of death, and is a wake up call for all the sleepers that abound. Bravo!"" Rachel Saltz of The New York Times stated that "The action sequences mostly have tension and punch, even if the movie is old-school long — 2 hours 41 minutes — and the plot doesn’t bear too much scrutiny". The romantic angle of the movie was criticised. Hindustan Times praised the performance of Akshay Kumar. Filmfare critic praised the movie as , "Genuinely smart action thriller"