The 2003 Hollywood release, THE ITALIAN JOB was a decent flick. The movie opens with the heist of $35 million in gold bars from a Venetian mansion. And although PLAYERS, Abbas-Mustan’s latest offering is a straight lift from the Hollywood flick, they fail to even lift impressively. I mean, you have a ready plot, you know what each actor’s role ought to be and the screenplay is well laid out. All they have to do is adapt it to the Indian audience which, frankly speaking requires a little imagination. That’s where they suffer!

The names Abbas-Mustan evoke images of racy thrillers with twists-n-turns, dashing heroes, sexy femme fatales and good music. Their movies may lack logic at times but they rarely lack in entertainment. So it was with expectations of getting thoroughly entertained that I sat down to watch their latest offering, Players, starring Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu, Sonam Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Neil Nitin, Mukesh, Vinod Khanna, Johnny Lever, Omi Vaidya and Sikander.

Players, the official remake of Hollywood’s heist flick The Italian Job (itself a remake of a British caper film of the same name) is no frame-by-frame copy. There’s enough desi masala to make it an entertaining action flick to kick off 2012 for Bollywood.

The one thing Abbas-Mustan films practically guarantee, despite the degree of theft or ‘inspiration’ from Hollywood flicks, is pacy entertainment. The plot of `Players’ is not stolen, but honorably bought, and has a terrific pedigree : the original ‘Italian Job’ had the groovy Michael Caine as super-thief Charlie, and lots of lovely lolly; the remake nearly 40 years later had the beefy Mark Wahlberg reprising Charlie the Chor’s role, and the very dishy Charlize Theron as the bad-good girl. Both films gave us the kind of enjoyment the best heist movies do : slick thieves with slicker moves, blonde bombshells, zippy car-chases and worthy villains.

Players is hilarious. I haven’t chuckled this much at a movie in a long time. The first time I laughed hard was when Victor dada (Vinod Khanna) introduced each ‘Player’ to Charlie (Abhishek Bachchan). After introducing Ronnie the ‘illusionist’ (Bobby Deol), Bilal the ‘explosives guy’ (Sikander Kher) and Sunny the ‘make up artist’ (Omi Vaidya), Khanna turned to Riya (Bipasha Basu). Her job description – “the hottie who charms every man she comes in contact with”, or something to that effect. This was followed by a shot of Bipasha strutting around in a bikini, assets on display. Cut to close-up of Khanna sporting a leery grin, winking at Bipasha.

It all starts when Charlie Mascarenhas’ (Abhishek Bachchan) friend Raj (Aftab Shivdasani) discloses a possibility of heist when gold worth ten thousand crore would be transported from Russia to Romania. Together with Riya (Bipasha Basu), an expert machinist, Charlie gathers a band of professionals: Victor Braganza (Vinod Khanna), the head of the gang, Bilal Bashir (Sikander Kher), an explosive expert, Ronny (Bobby Deol), a magician, and Sunny Mehra (Omi Vaidya), ace make-up artist.

Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Burmawala Brothers’ Players (UA), the official remake of the Hollywood film, The Italian Job, is about a gold heist adventure. Charlie Mascarenhas (Abhishek Bachchan), a chartered accountant by profession, learns from a DVD he receives from Shehla, the widow of his deceased friend, Raj (Aftab Shivdasani in a friendly appearance), that gold worth Rs. 10,000 crore is going to be transported from Russia to Romania in a train. He approaches Victor Dada (Vinod Khanna), who is serving a jail sentence, and seeks his help in putting together a team to rob the gold.

There’s an uncomfortable truth about Abbas-Mustan’s latest film ‘Players’ that few critics will admit to – it’s not all bad! This fast-paced khichdi of two previous ‘Italian Job’ movies and the director duo’s own last film ‘Race’ has so much going on all at once that you’re left with little time to dwell on the gaping plot holes, the laughable dialogue, and the wooden performances.

It’s a given that hi-voltage action thrillers enthrall and electrify viewers no end. The existing inclination within the industry is to opt for remakes [of South Indian films specifically], though Abbas-Mustan have continuously, in their three decade career, tilted towards western thrillers to be specific. PLAYERS, their latest offering, is the official remake of THE ITALIAN JOB. But it’s not a scene to scene adaptation of the classic that was attempted twice in the West. The core conception remains the same, but the screenplay is amended significantly to suit the Indian sensibilities.

A few players intend to share the loot, given the plan or plot (borrowed from Hollywood) is already in place. That’s the story of this film. It could be the related stories PLAYERS PROMO EVENT: Sonam raises middle finger!

The real problem with this official remake of The Italian Job is that instead of reproducing a perfectly nuanced screenplay as it is, it tries to act too smart, with excessive elements and needless tampering, in the process making a complete fool of itself. Why can’t you stick to the plan, Bollywood? All this time we witness our filmmakers rip-off Hollywood scene-by-scene but the minute they acquire rights, they are hit by an army of brainwaves or an insuppressible need to improvise (read flounder).

After making a career out of surreptitiously remaking foreign films forever, director-duo Abbas Mustan have proved their recycling capabilities credibly enough to win the opportunity of directing an ‘official’ remake of a Hollywood flick. They have stars, budget, virgin locations and also a readymade film (rather two of them) for reference. But that know-all impudence of the directors to Indianize The Italian Job is like having a pizza with Punjabi tadka topping.