Holiday- A Soldier Is Never Off Duty movie review: It's long and disappointing

It's rare to see any action flick having an intriguing premise. It's easy to take an idea but there is no guarantee of carrying the same plot throughout the flick. A.R Murugadoss of ‘Ghajini' fame, though, tries hard to prove us wrong but he barely succeeds through ‘Holiday- A Soldier Is Never Off Duty'.Ratings-**Stars- Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Freddy DaruwalaDirector- A.R. MurugadossThe problem lies with the execution of the events, which were supposed to be cunning but it never gives you that intelligent feeling apart from couple of scenes, which include Virat Bakshi (Akshay Kumar), an army officer's method of finding out the locations of the terror attack.The rest is made-up and are unbelievably exhausting. The message which the director tries to deliver through the flick also doesn't leave an impact.What's good is that Akshay succeeds shedding his typical masala entertainer image suitable for just humour and gags in films.Here as Virat Bakshi, he is on a vacation in Mumbai. The desperate family wants to see him mingled so here is the girl Sahiba (Sonakshi Sinha). Virat snubs her off because she is too simple and sober for him. But later he is completely taken by surprise when he finds Sahiba's total opposite avatar.Amidst all their typical romance, the story moves forward and takes a dark turn when an anti-social terrorist group, headed by a Freddy Daruwala (Farhad), plans an attack on different cities. Now how this soldier Virat battles it out against them and how he demolishes the never heard before ‘sleeper cells', A.R. Murgudoss narrates this tale through Holiday, which is also the remake of his own Tamil flick ‘Thuppaki'.Thuppaki was a hit in South, but I am afraid its Hindi version wouldn't be acceptable in Bollywood. It isn't that the flick doesn't have a good plot. The sleeper cells were never discussed in movies and we welcome Murugadoss' idea but disappointingly it doesn't take off well. There are numerous loose threads like why the soldier off duty takes the pain to solve the mystery by himself and mostly treats it like a game.The terror attacks aren't deadly and the innocent people dying don't instill sorrow in your heart. The investigation by Akshay doesn't really look viable. And if you ask about any masala element in this flick, I would say there are plenty of them unnecessarily. While Sonakshi's pop-up moments in every twenty minutes disturbs the flow, Sumeet Raghavan, as a helpless sub inspector provides more unauthentic moments in the flick. Rest of the purpose is served by mastermind Farhad, who looks intriguing and frightening while he uis silent but is mocked once he is asked to act. At least there should have been a personality who could stand to the aura of Akshay Kumar; someone like Vidyut Jamwal who played Farhad's role in Holiday's original version.The face-off between the two in last twenty minutes, which should have been smashing, proves dull in a big way. The action was needed to be raw, the humour was to be chopped baring Govinda's cameo appearance, and the message was to be provided depth. Murugadoss uses all these elements, mashes them but gives nil impact. As a result, Holiday turns out to be neither gripping nor engaging.What is worth your attention is just Akshay Kumar's mind-blowing performance. The actor is more refined this time. He shows patience, carries the act with ease and when needed he shows the same zeal in action.Sonakshi Sinha is just here to dance and flirt with Akki. We wish their frames could have been trimmed.Sumeet Raghavan adds some good comic punches but his character in unbelievable. Farhad doesn't fit into his negative character and disappoints. Songs of Pritam were nothing to do in this flick also he takes less pain in the flick. I'll go with two stars for Holiday- A Soldier Is Never Off Duty.