Akshay Kumar’s latest biggie, the first off the cans post the IPL blitz, has the tagline: “A soldier is never off duty.” Well, that is an instant reminder of the Inglourious Basterds punchline: “A basterd’s work is never done.”

But Holiday, Ghajini-maker A.R. Murugadoss’s second Bollywood effort adapted from his own Tamil film Thuppakki, wants to change the future of India rather than the history of the world. Its mission: To kill this one man operating from his isolated house in Thar and finish terrorism in India.

Sounds simple? You ain’t heard nothing yet!

Representing India, Indian army, Indian police, Indian intelligence and Indian manhood is one man who wasn’t anywhere. Because he is a secret agent, you see. His family doesn’t know, his friends don’t know, his own army colleagues don’t know but only those dying at his hands are privileged to learn that the not-so-jawaan Jawan is actually DIA. Huh? Wait for a second and he will give you the full form himself: Defence Intelligence Agency. Duh!

That Virat man, of course, is played by Akshay Kumar with a hairstyle which doesn’t change with every scene but with every damn shot. The mutating crop of mop sometimes resembles Rahul Roy’s fringe from Aashiqui, sometimes Salman Khan’s tuft from Tere Naam and sometimes Jadoo’s hairdo from Koi... Mil Gaya.

Coming back to his work, he steals terrorists from the police and locks them up in his almirah. Then Virat babu brings out a tool box and chooses clippers to cut off his captive’s fingers. Once he gets information out of them, he takes the Indian cops and politicians involved to the roofs of their houses and forces them to commit suicide.

But Virat’s greatest achievement is solving the Rubik’s Cube without even looking at it. He just manhandles the blocks of the cube as a stress-buster and when he throws it away, all the colours get aligned on their own. Even Erno Rubik wouldn’t know how to do that.

Now, the man’s personal mission in life is to get married. As Katrina Kaif had spelt it out in Ek Tha Tiger, these 50-touching superheroes of ours have reached marriageable age on screen. So, enter Sonakshi Sinha who, according to a song in the film, can play every sport invented and yet to be invented by man. Boxing, judo, running, volleyball, javelin... sports has a new size: Sonakshi.

If you manage to get past these levels of inanity, you might enjoy the action scenes in Holiday. Choreographed by Greg Powell, the man behind the Skyfall stunts, the action packs quite a punch and is the only high of a three-hour-long film trying to convince the world that Akshay Kumar is intelligent. In the past Tasveer tried it, Blue tried it, Joker tried it. We all know what happened to them.

There are two other scenes you have to watch in Holiday. The ones featuring Govinda, who plays Akshay’s senior in the army. He doesn’t do much but just his pokerface with that infectious ooh-ooh loop from Kisi disco mein jaaye in the background brings a smile to your face and a zillion fond memories in your head.

The new boy Farhad playing the lead baddie, who wakes up the sleeper cells, has the look and the attitude but the moment he opens his mouth, he gets instantly demoted in the villain ranks. Sumeet Raghavan as Virat’s friend is excellent, though. There is nothing fresh about Pritam’s music, with none of the songs worth returning to.

You must be wondering why this film about cubist terrorism and sporty romance is called Holiday. Well, all these hair-changing events happen when our man is on holiday at home. Just imagine what all he can do when he is actually at work. No, don’t imagine; even bad wishes come true!