Players Movie Review

 Abbas-Mustan's Players has going for it. With five out of its seven lead actors, including Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor and Bobby Deol, being second-generation stars, the Burmawalla brothers' latest release could moonlight as a Bollywood trust fund of sorts. In fact, even the plot here is inherited, being an official remake of 2003's Hollywood heist, The Italian Job. However, just like its leading stars, Players too manages to make a hash of its inherited legacy, some with bad acting, and some, by being just plain terrible.


You know the plot, now. Players revolves around a set of slick mega-robberies, one for gold, and one for revenge. The lead piece is career cat-burglar Charlie Mascarenhas (Abhishek Bachchan), who comes upon a plan to steal a gigantic consignment of gold being moved from Russia to Romania under huge surveillance. To pull off the mega-heist, though, Charlie needs the help of his mentor Victor Dada (Vinod Khanna), who helps him put together a super-team of 'players', like illusionist Ronnie (Bobby Deol), explosives expert Bilal Behra (Sikander Kher), makeup expert Sunny (Omi Vaidya), ace hacker Spyder (Neil Nitin Mukesh) and femme fatale Riya (Bipasha Basu). Though the team manages to pull off the job, one of their numbers turns on them, taking all of them out and stealing the gold for oneself, killing Ronnie and Victor Dada in the process. A year later, the remaining team reunites, with Victor Dada's hacker daughter Naina (Sonam Kapoor) in tow, to seek revenge on the villain in their midst and steal their gold back with a plan that involves explosions, action and a whole lot of fast cars, like the famed Mini Coopers.

Players disappoints from the word go. Given its background in The Italian Job, one expects Abbas-Mustan to make some polished work of this film. However, when they manage to bring in bad dubbing, terrible comedy (courtesy Johnny Lever) and absurd plot elements within the first five minutes of the film, you know all is lost. Bluntly put, Abbas-Mustan can be glossy, but they can't be slick, and that makes all the difference in the world. There are points in Players, where you can't tell this supposed 'heist' film apart from Home Alone; that is the level of action being doled out here. While the director duo still manages to do a fair job of the first heist in the film, in the second one, all is lost.

On top of that, it seems like Abbas-Mustan's idea of Indianising this Hollywood caper, is simply bringing in some lame emotional drama, giving one of the actors a paralysed daughter to take care of, unnecessary love angles, and caricaturing Vinod Khanna's Victor Dada as an aged do-gooder of a thief, who has promised his daughter he's out of the scene. While it's all meant to tug at one's heart-strings, a heart attack is more preferable.

The bad plot points in the film are only accentuated by the even more terrible acting. Abhishek Bachchan is coming off a string of flops here, with last year's Game and Dum Maaro Dum behind him, and is surely hoping for a change of fortunes. Unfortunately, this isn't it. The younger Bachchan showed some flair in his last role, in DMD, but is back to his dull, plainly uninspiring ways here. Abhishek has tendency to mistake smug for smart, and that is the mistake he makes here as well.

The same goes for Neil Nitin Mukesh, who is cast in a tricky role, but cannot pin it down right. Five years since his promising debut in Johnny Gaddaar, the young actor has gone nowhere, and it is over-the-top acting like this that is to blame. Bobby Deol and Sikander Kher are wasted away in bit roles, and there's not much you can say of them.

The veteran Vinod Khanna has an interesting role, but casting him as a frail old man, retired from the criminal life, is a major misstep. The same goes for Omi Vaidya, who is funny, but is sorely miscast in his role as Sunny, what with that terrible accent of his. The only good turn in this film comes from a resurgent Bipasha Basu, who is better than the rest of the gang here, though even she falters at more than a few places.

However, even Bipasha comes off as an acting goddess next to the travesty that the film's other female lead, Sonam Kapoor, makes of her role as Naina. If she's a geeky hacker in the film, why she chooses to play it up like a complete bimbo is completely inexplicable. Couple that with her completely hammy, school-play-like dialogue delivery, and her role turns out to be one of the worst acting performances in recent times for Hindi cinema.

Pritam's music for the film is fair stuff, but isn't used quite right. Bipasha turns up the heat with 'ho gayi tun', but the jarring rhythm of the track throws one off completely.

\in New Zealand and the chase scenes in the final heist. Allan Amin's stuntwork is impressive at certain points, as is Hussain Burmawalla's editing work.

Simply put, Players is lost cause, with little happening for it. It's quite amazing that Abbas-Mustan manage to goof it up even with the proven plot of The Italian Job behind them. But then, what is to be expected of it, if the duo finds time to bring lame jokes into a heist film, dressing up a white New Zealander in a dhoti and a Gandhi cap and calling him Ramu Kaka?

Terrible handling of the story and even worse acting from the stars, that is all that Players has to offer. Our advice? Instead of watching this one, make like a Mini and flee!