Play it safe. Review on Players

This is my first effort on a movie review and now I know what it takes to write a movie review. I have always admired and appreciated some of the ace “movie” review writers such as Fenil, Paul, Jitu bhai, Ajeet bhai and other excellent writers. Hats off the them.

I would like to give movie details in the following sequence:

The Cast:

Vinod Khanna, Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu, Bobby Deol, Sikander Kher, Omi Vaidya, Neil, Sonam Kapoor and Johny lever.
All are good however I feel that Arshad warsi would have been better than Sikander Kher. Arjun ramplal could have been better than Abhishek.

The story and performances:

Saw this movie today afternoon and had mixed feelings as this movie is a kind of Mix tawa bhaji. I mean the movie had all the formulas and masalas. I felt as if director doesn’t want to take any chance to impress the audience. Plus this is not an original story. Inspired by the movie “Italian Job”.

This reminded me of old Dev saab’s movies which had many twists and “Kabhi gun hero ke haath mein toh kabhi villain ke haath mein.

The players are trying to steal gold worth crores from a train in Russia.

The movie begins with a few scenes where Abhishek forms a core team with the help of Vinod Khanna. Plan the robbery, Execute it and than a series of twists and turns. The problem is when the “sci-fi” Hollywood movies set a high benchmark and it becomes difficult for Indian directors to match these. The entire story has many flaws and makes it difficult to believe such as hacking the account and tracking the location of Neil. Is it really so easy to fool Russian army?

Creating Illusion on train window glass is not convincing enough. The story progresses with twists and turns and surprises while the team successfully steals gold. What happens after that? Who gets how much gold? Who betrays whom? Who sacrifices and who wins in the end? Watch the movie to know it all however many scenes are too predictable like the illusion of Russian landscape created by Bobby deol, The soldier waves to the woman in illusion, the illusion system has a fault, Bobby deol replays the illusion, the same soldier spots the same woman in illusion and raises an alarm realizing it was fake.

The most entertaining and thrilling scene was indeed train robbery in spite of its flaws.
Neil has given a fine and impressive performance as Spider. Bobby deol has been underplayed. Omi is getting typecast and while watching Abhishek you can see the resemblance of Dhoom or bluff master. First half is good but real fun begins in the second half with many surprises and shocks.

Bipasha was good, Vinod khanna was average. Some of the best comic scenes were the police station / jail scenes. Johny was not given a long roll.

This is a typical formula film. “Sab kuch daal doh, kuch toh pasand aayga!”

Direction:

I give 8/10 for direction. The director duo tried their best to keep audience glued and entertained. They successfully made some mediocre scenes impressive.
Sets were lavish and no cutting cost and corners.

Music:

Frankly after leaving the theater, I dint remember even one single song. Mediocre lyrics and music. Not a single hummable tune. Unwanted song sequences / item songs. I preferred going out and buying cold drinks during songs.
Dialogues: Were good and I still remember some of the dialogues such as Police aur chor mein 3 farak hote hain… etc. Still could have been better.

Cinematography & editing is good. Clean and slick editing, scene cuts, mid shots, close ups and landscapes were well stitched, barring few instances, was too good.

Conclusion:

Don’t think too much, keep logical thinking aside, just enjoy foreign locations, beaches, Bipasha, thrilling sequences, car chases, innovative ways to do robbery and enjoy. Although the movie is no great shakes but still it will not disappoint you. It would have been better to wait for the movie to come on TV but the big screen really offers treat for your eyes. A one time watch.