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Review (without seeing the movie): Players

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First a short intro, More and more movie studios are flooding the audience with aggressive marketing campaigns, weeks of trailers, first look poster reveals, meet and greets with the stars and a barrage of tweets and viral videos on various social media sites.

As an audience we have reached a point of saturation, and sometimes we even feel we have seen the movie before its release.

We have become heavily polarized with which stars we like or dislike because no one wants to act any more, they all want to be brands. Movies aren’t entertainment anymore, they have all become events.

 

So we at Upodcast, being the enfant terrible of cinema blogs, we have created a new feature, the review based on the movie trailer!

We haven’t seen the movie yet but we will be featuring some guest bloggers that will review the movie based on the trailers. Of course all of this is done in a tongue in cheek way but somewhere down the line it’s also the audience answer to the exhaustion we all feel!

Our first review is from our good friend DishoomPK, do check out his blog and twitter feed, which is always fun and interesting!

Dishoompk always goes for Gold!

Review (without seeing the movie): Players

Abbas-Mustan latest movie “Players” is a “remake” of The Italian Job. But In actuality, it is a remake of the 2003 remake of the Italian Job. That fact is a general indicator of the derivative nature of the movie, where everything seems like something we might have seen in some generic Steven Seagal Hollywood action movie. The characters are developed with the same aesthetics of a western action flick, where they are mere tools to move from one explosion to the next, with little or no character development. Most of the character exploration dealt with a superficial motivation of the characters. These motivation are two flimsy to make the audience root for the protagonists of Players.

To give some credit to Abbas-Mustan, the scope of the movie really impresses. If one wants to see a B-grade Hollywood action movie, one would be getting a bit more than that. Some masala was graciously spread out here and there, to make it just palatable for your average Bollywood viewer. However, very much like Abbas-Mustan’s last venture “Race”, the storytelling is quite fragmented and there’s no flow to the proceedings. The emotional quotient is lacking, as well. However, some of the stunts performed in to movie are really great, and it was magnificent to see some of those sequences pan out on the big screen, with some South Asian faces attached to them. Also the Russian and the New Zealand backgrounds is seem so majestic, on the big screen!

In the acting department, most of the ensemble cast doesn’t give us a surprising performance. Abhishek Bachchan goes through all the motions with a stern face, in which he is trying very hard to embody some “Angry Young Man” who is motivated to do something and is proactive, and intelligent. But he ends up looking like a grumpy overachiever. He is just “too cool” to get the character the essential emotional kick to make us want to root for him. We don’t see his insecurities, we don’t see his shortcomings: We just see a cool dude, trying to do rob some gold.

Bipasha Basu was unfortunately underused, and her character was only there to distract people so that the “men” can swoop in and finish the job. I think Bipasha has grown so much as an actress, and she needs meatier roles, which give more justice to her talent and her experience. One of the surprises of the movie was Sonam Kapoor’s bad-ass character, which the audience would find to be very refreshing. Her attitude just hits the right notes, even though it might seem that it is trying a bit too hard to fit in the boys club. Neil Mukesh’s character as a nerdy hacker was too one-dimensional and full of stereotypes that one associates with these kinds of character. On the other hand, Bobby Deol’s hair might just get the crowd going, on its’ own.

The music of the movie was really good, as one would expect from the said directors. The picturisations were really fun. Bipasha looks stunning in THAT song, and her chemistry with Bobby is sizzling! Sonam needs to gain some weight, to get a grip on the “curvy” nature of dance moves she was trying to do.

All in all, it might be a paisa vasool if you think Anees Bazmee is a paisa vasool director. This is certainly better than Anees Bazmee paisa vasool film!

Follow DishoomPK on his blog or twitter!

 

Let us know what you think of this new feauture or of Players before or after seeing the movie!

Players releases nationwide January 6th 2012!

 

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2 thoughts on “Review (without seeing the movie): Players”

  1. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! I like this movie very much.  infact my family i.e. my husband and my 3 year old daughter is liking so much that we all give best wishes to Mr. Abbas Mustan for making this marvolous movie.  My daughter is remembering so many dialogues of that film, and requesting to see the movie again and again.
    Mrs. Chinmayee Behera
    Orissa

  2. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! I like this movie very much.  infact my family i.e. my husband and my 3 year old daughter is liking so much that we all give best wishes to Mr. Abbas Mustan for making this marvolous movie.  My daughter is remembering so many dialogues of that film, and requesting to see the movie again and again.
    Mrs. Chinmayee Behera
    Orissa

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