Film

Holiday

Other titles called Holiday: the 1938 film, the 2014 film.

Holiday is a muscular Bollywood thriller about an army captain who stumbles into a terror plot during leave in Mumbai. It's a solid action vehicle built on the Akshay Kumar template: propulsive, violent, patriotic, and uninterested in subtlety. For viewers who want explosions, chases, and a hero who wins through sheer physical will. Nearly three hours, so commit.

TMDb rating3.2

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Airlift2016

Another Akshay Kumar action thriller with political stakes. A businessman evacuates Indian citizens from Kuwait during an invasion. Similar scale, similar energy, similarly committed to spectacle over plausibility.

But The plot can feel like a vehicle for set pieces rather than a coherent story. Pacing drags in places despite the runtime.

Airlift poster

Baby2015

An Indian intelligence team hunts terrorists across continents. Spy thriller with genuine tension, a strong ensemble, and a moral complexity that Holiday reaches for but doesn't quite grasp. Taut and effective.

But Slower-paced than Holiday, with less Akshay Kumar heroics and more procedural detail. Some may find it less fun.

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The Delta Force1986

John Abraham as a cop hunting a criminal mastermind. Stylish, violent, committed to its own aesthetic. No pretence to be anything other than a furious action film with real stakes for its hero.

But Deeply uneven in places. The thriller logic occasionally folds under scrutiny.

The Delta Force poster

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Rang De Basanti2006

Both are Indian thrillers built on ordinary people discovering conspiracies that force them to act. Both conflate political action with physical heroism, but RDB earns the equation through genuine moral inquiry where Holiday asserts it.

A group of Delhi college students uncover a military conspiracy and must decide how far they'll go for justice. It shares Holiday's patriotic DNA but places moral weight behind the action. Aamir Khan at his most charismatic. The sequences where ordinary people become extraordinary belong to cinema.

But Three hours long and emotionally demanding. The tonal shift from college comedy to political thriller can feel lurching. The politics are more felt than argued.

Rang De Basanti poster
More like this (8)

Raees2017

Shah Rukh Khan as a smuggler, Kay Kay Menon as the cop hunting him. A cat-and-mouse thriller with texture, atmosphere, and a real moral edge. More nuanced than Holiday but equally gripping.

But The second half loses momentum. The final act feels rushed and undermines what came before.

Raees poster

Commando - A One Man Army2013

Vidyut Jammwal as a commando hunting terrorists in a foreign country. Raw, visceral action. Jammwal is a genuine physical performer, and the film trusts that over empty spectacle. Lean and mean.

But Lower budget shows in places. The narrative is skeletal. Some action sequences feel underbaked.

Commando - A One Man Army poster

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace1999

Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif in a covert revenge thriller. Smarter than it needs to be, with genuine international locations and a pair of leads who actually convince as professionals.

But The moral complexity it reaches for can feel didactic. Doesn't quite earn its ambition.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace poster

Special 262013

A heist thriller disguised as a patriotic action film. Intelligent plotting, multiple reversals, and a cast firing on all cylinders. You'll actually be surprised by where it goes.

But The second half becomes less clever than the first. The finale prioritizes heroics over the brains the setup promised.

Special 26 poster

Badlapur2015

Varun Dhawan in a revenge thriller with real darkness. Brutal, focused, and uninterested in charm. Proves Bollywood thrillers can have genuine teeth when they commit to consequence.

But Bleak and grinding. Not fun in the way Holiday is fun. Demands you sit with discomfort.

Badlapur poster

Thugs of Hindostan2018

Aamir Khan and Amitabh Bachchan in a pirate action film. Massive scale, genuine historical stakes, and two stars proving they can still carry spectacle at their age.

But Narratively incoherent. The plot barely holds together. You watch for the moments, not the story.

Thugs of Hindostan poster

The Bourne Identity2002

Holiday borrows the structure of the lone operative hunting an enemy across a nation, but Bourne does it with restraint and mystery. Holiday is the maximalist answer to Bourne's minimalism. Watching both shows you two utterly different philosophies of how to make tension.

An amnesiac agent hunts his identity while being hunted in turn. The blueprint for modern action thrillers. Handheld, visceral, propulsive. Everything Holiday imitates, Bourne perfected. It redefined what action cinema could be.

But Twenty years old now, which means you'll see how much it influenced what came after. It's less novel than essential. The plot is genuinely thin.

The Bourne Identity poster

Mumbai Meri Jaan2008

Holiday fictionalizes terror in Mumbai for catharsis and spectacle. This film documents actual terror to demand reckoning. They occupy opposite poles of how cinema processes the same historical wound. Watching them back-to-back recalibrates what action cinema claims to achieve.

A documentary-realist film about the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. Follows multiple strangers on the day of the attacks. No heroes, no action sequences, no military genius—just ordinary people, ordinariness, and sudden rupture. A genuine masterpiece of humanist cinema by Nataša Gajić.

But Completely devoid of action or thriller mechanics. Slow, meditative, devastating. It processes trauma rather than resolving it. Some will find it unbearably heavy.

Mumbai Meri Jaan poster

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