Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Game review: "As uninspiring as Kenya's cricket team!!!"

After a pretty long lull in the box-office, Bollywood has finally woken up from its self imposed slumber owing to the World Cup. With the Men in Blue having raised the title after a long gap of 28 years, its time that Bollywood come up with some of its on own magic to rack in the moolah. Interestingly, the first big movie to hit the screens in quite a while is the Abhishek Bachchan starrer which seems to be aptly named "Game" keeping in mind the flavour of the season. Whether or not, it will hit the jackpot remains to be seen; however here's an account as to how I felt about the movie.


The movie unfolds in Samoa,Greece where Kabir Malhotra (Anupam Kher), a multi-billionaire invites a group of four strangers to his private island. These four include Neil Menon (Abhishek Bachchan), a casino owner & drug dealer in Turkey; O.P Ramsey (Boman Irani), Prime Ministerial candidate of Thailand with a shady background; Vikram Kapoor (Jimmy Shergill), leading Bollywood star & Tisha Khanna (Udita Goswami), crime journalist. None of them knows each other but very soon we are being made aware of the fact that they are indeed linked to each other. So what was this linkage & what was the motive of Kabir Malhotra. The answer to these queries forms the crux of the movie.


Being helmed by Abhinay Deo, "Game" is his released directorial debut in the sense that his initial venture "Delhi Belly", is still on the floors. There is no doubt that the movie is stylishly shot in exotic locations like Turkey, Samoa, London & Bangkok & kudos for that goes to Karthik Vijay especially for the chase sequence in Istanbul. However, there is a limit to how much visuals can contribute to the movie & the lack of a credible story is definitely the biggest flaw. Althea Delmas is lacking clarity in his script & after a pretty impressive first half, doesnt have anything to offer at all in the second half. Another huge let down is the music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, which fails to add to the suspense of the move that it tries to create.

Its a well known fact, that if the script fails there is very little that the performers could do. This fact is very much true in the case of "Game". Abhishek Bachchan hasnt done any harm to his not so impressive career graph however the second half of the movie severely hampers whatever scope was available. Kangana Ranaut has definitely improved in her diction while debutant Sarah Jane has done a decent job. As for the remaining star cast, Boman Irani was a bit over the top while Udita Goswami & Anupam Kher were wasted.

Verdict: The promos promised a lot but the final product disappointed royally. The blame falls squarely on the script for the unimaginative, boring & predictable second half. All in all, I dont think it will trouble the cash counters much & likely to invite losses. In short, you may as well miss this & wait for IPL to start!!!

Regards...Ben

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