Overall, film generates huge buzz.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: Akshay Kumar’s summer blockbuster Holiday which released in theaters today, has gotten a mixed bag of opinion. Some love it, some hate it, while some elaborated on its pros and cons.
The praise for Holiday is for its intelligent plot, screenplay and action sequences.
Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama writes, “Murugadoss employs the right tricks to woo the entertainment-seeking spectator — abundant turns in the screenplay, the faceoff between good and evil, the hand-to-hand combat, the subtle humor, the nail-biting finale et al — but at the end of the day, the message that the film communicates resonates loud and clear.” He adds that the film has a fascinating premise and a “razor-sharp, water-tight” screenplay.
Akshay’s Holiday is a remake of the Tamil film Thuppakki. As it happens to be, Holiday is not the only remake of Thuppakki releasing this summer. Bengali film Game which released last week is also a remake of the same. With 203 screens, Game has received the biggest opening yet for any Bengali film. Earlier, when Akshay had released Rowdy Rathore, a remake of Vikramarkudu,a Bengali remake, Bikram Singha starring national award winning actor Prosenjit Chatterjee had released in the theaters. The film had done extremely well.
Holiday is creating quite the buzz on twitter, with people tweeting from inside the theaters during the first show. IBNLive Movies tweeted during the film’s interval: “Interval now & the movie has been gripping so far. Audience in the theater breaking into applause & whistles at regular intervals.”
Madhurima Chatterjee of The Times of India rated it 3.5 stars, and found the film “offers an intelligent plot, with blows, blasts and raw bone-cracking action (Greg Powell-of ‘Skyfall’ fame). It triggers a fear that anyone from your paanwala to pizza-delivery boy could be a ‘closet’ terrorist (Beware!).”
Jyoti Sharma Bawa of The Hindustan Times praised the film for its fresh take on patriotism.
“Despite the fact that Holiday is a film about terror and Akshay plays an army man, there is not even one mention of Pakistan. Sarhad is mentioned, dushmans come into play too but they are all generic. When name-calling of terrorists begins, it is not limited to one particular religion. Instead, sleeper cells and terror are explained as byproducts of disenchantment with government/country,” writes Bawa.
However, not all are in praise of this film.
Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV writes, “Holiday is a ride gone horribly wrong. It is a drab and dreary action thriller in which neither the action nor the thrills rise to any great heights. In the end, Holiday resembles the hero’s aforementioned broken arm, a crooked and cracked limb in desperate need of a bone replacement surgery. Holiday lacks the sustained intensity and urgency of an edge-of-the-seat spy thriller. The script does not allow Akshay Kumar to be the no-nonsense action hero that would have held the film in better stead.”