first half hollywood range ,second half kollywood range

2012 is upon us & along with it kindles the hopes of an even bigger, better year for the industry. With quite a few of them such as "Bodyguard", "Ready", "Don 2" etc. racking in big bucks, this week witnessed the release of "Players" with similar hopes from the director duo of Abbas Mustan. This dynamic duo have craved a niche for themselves for their stylish films which is high on dare devilry stunts & interesting twists. So can their latest venture with an ensemble of stars be the first blockbuster of the year???

Bollywood is well known for their absolute disregard & shamelessness for ripping off from Hollywood flicks without even batting an eyelid. However, there has been a welcome change with Abbas Mustan obtaining the rights for remaking the blockbuster "The Italian Job". Since many of my friends has seen the original, I dont believe this review requires much of an insight into the plot. Charlie (Abhishek Bachchan) plans on a gold heist from the Russians & is assisted in his mission by a team of the best tacticians which is put together by his mentor, Victor Braganza (Vinod Khanna). Though they successfully pull off the heist, the team gets double crossed by one among them. This unfolds further twists & turns; & how they manage to get even.

Abbas Mustan has always been the masters of suspense & twists but unfortunately they fail to inject a sense of surprise this time around. It's true that they have Indianised it & remained true to the original with a couple of twists of their own which however fails to excite us. The stunts are stylish & the cinematography by Ravi Yadav deserves a word of praise for the stunning locales. Another dampener is the mediocre scores by Pritam with hardly any song worthy enough of tapping our foot. But the biggest flaw is undoubtedly the unimaginative screenplay by Rohit Jugraj & Sudip Sharma, as the heist lacks the zing or originality of "Italian Job".

Now comes to the most important part of actually enacting it on screen, Abhishek Bachchan has done a decent job of being the man in command. Sikhandar Kher & Omi Vaidya fails to impart much impact while Sonam Kapoor yet again proves that she doesnt have a clue on how to emote on screen. Neil Nitin Mukesh displays his skills with his meaty role while Bobby Deol was wasted. Bips does keep the mercury rising with her oomph factor.

Verdict: "Players" will fail to make any impression in the box office & in all likelihood going to burn the producers hands. In short, you may as well watch the original in case you missed it!!!

Rating: 2/5

Regards...Ben

Well, let me begin the review on a positive note. Director-duo Abbas Mustan have come up with yet another stylish thriller that is awesome to watch in its cinematography. They have added yet another feather in their already crowded cap. And my positivity ends here. Let’s begin the review now in right earnest. The movie has style but misses out on content and acting. It has shadows but no substance. The movie could rightly’ve been named JOKERS!

The joke doing rounds on the internet: Abbas-Mustan were approached by Dharmendra Deol, Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna, Anupam Kher, Anil Kapoor, Nitin Mukesh, Prem Shivdasani, Abbas Alibhai Burmawala to resurrect their star kids’ careers. A-M duo agreed. And their New Year bomb ne unka band baaja baja diya. Flops ki madad kee aur khud doob gaye. The duo are unlikely to recover from this massive failure. Viacom18 has already terminated their third film contract after this dud. And Puri Jagannath has booted out Abhishek from Businessman. Players has sadly nothing going for it except its directors, who churn out The Indian Job (sorry, The Italian Job). After that it is sorry, sorry and sorrier. The gold heist story couldn’t have been more pathetic given the choice of blank actors, with bland performances. They are simply unable to emote. They have only two standard emotions – first is ONE emotion and second is NO emotion. There is no place for a third emotion or other ranges. After all, we are dealing with a bunch of starry duds, flops and strugglers (who never say die).

With so many duds in the movie, who cares for the story or even the movie? Some in the audience are tearing the seats while others are tearing their (non-existent) hair. No one wishes to look for songs that are staple of Hindi movies. There is some solace package in the form of Johnny Lever (62) and Omi Vaidya (29), who try to cure audience’s depression. Bipasha Basu at 32-40 is over the hill. This babe should seriously think of matrimony. Her shape is not fit for red bikini but for shaadi-byaah. I don’t know if John Abraham had a lucky escape. The surprise package of this movie is SHWETA BHARDWAJ. This 26-something infuses enough life with her vamp’s role that I did remember her seductive number. She should have been on the banners and trailers and promos. Maybe audience’d’ve rushed to theatres. But like I said, she is a (pleasant) surprise item. Kudos also to singers Mauli Dave, Priyani Vani, Ritu Pathak, Shruti Pathak and Yashita Yashpal. Let me put this in a nut-shell: If you’ve not seen this movie, you’re hale and hearty. But if you’ve, you may need a psychiatrist so that you can be strong enough to view the next star kids’ duds. If only the director-duo had considered Sanjay, Salman, SRK, Hrithik, Ranbir for the roles. I guess, they couldn’t get them for free and settled for duds. Watch it if they offer u free tickets, coke, popcorn, to-n-fro travel, time-waste money, saridon... On second thoughts, ask for a refund on free tickets.