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Players, playing in screens across Pakistan, is an ineluctable mess starring Abhishek Bachchan, a safe full of gold and three Mini-Coopers zipping across subway tunnels. If this shapes the mental image of The Italian Job (2003), then you’re not far off.
Players is an official remake, meaning it has full authorization to make like an outdated photocopy machine, mixing familiar elements into an insipid, pedestrian heist movie.
Almost every tactic the movie introduced in its 150 minute running time has seen better imaginings. Bachchan (playing Charlie), adds personal zest and a smooth-criminal like charisma to the Abbas-Mustan directed thriller. However, one actor’s allure can only tow a film so far.
The barebones plot goes like this: Aftab Shivdasani, after dying in the first few minutes, sends Charlie info that will have him assemble a team capable of looting a speeding train filled with unaccounted gold from the Second World War. Charlie’s roll-call includes: Bobby Deol (playing a reserved illusionist with a paralyzed daughter), Neil Nitin Mukesh (the token geek hacker), Bipasha Basu (a sultry double-dealing cat-burglar), Omi Vaidya (a failed actor turned prosthetic expert), his love-hate buddy Sikander Kher (playing a deaf-Pakistani named Bilal – the weapons expert) and Sonam Kapoor– the computer wiz daughter of Vinod Khanna, Charlie’s mentor.
Half-way through the movie the group is betrayed of their gold and gunned down. From then onwards, Charlie and his remaining team try to out wit their betrayer from the stolen gold. Also on the gold’s trail is the Russian mafia, whose threat is absent for roughly 90 percent of the movie.
The principal cast tries its best to work the screenplay by Rohit Jugraj and Sudip Sharma, which has all the qualities of a spice-less Bollywood masala.
As Players, sluggishly tugs forward, one realizes that it is laden with shallow, inexpertly hewn dialogues. Scenes often introduce glimpses of superficially drafted back stories that are hard-pressed between unappealing, flavorless songs (music credited to Pritam with lyrics by Ashish Pandit).
It would have been a better gambit if the film makers had concentrated on a fresher, more contemporary storyline. Now that Bollywood is officially creeping up Hollywood’s alley with extravagant budgets and slick production values — it’s about time old-school formula filmmakers re-learned their craft.
That said, the auteurs of this movie Abbas-Mustan have been fairly successful in crafting a flashy, ill-chosen mess, that’s right down there with the Vivek Oberoi’s starrer “Prince” and that’s saying something.
