After Hrs Review: 'Players' is bad imitation!

Film: Players
Director: Abbas-Mustan
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Bipasha Basu, Sonam Kapoor, Neil Neitin Mukesh, Sikander Kher, Omi Vaidya, JJohhny Lever, Vinod Khanna
Rating: **

Players makes you feel bad for Bobby Deol. The actor who was once considered a promising star of Bollywood, has a smaller role than Johhny Lever to play in the first release of the year! Even before the Deol scion gets a chance to clench his fists and harden his jaws, he is dead! The film's promotions pitted Bobby Deol as a surprise element, but they forgot to mention that the surprise element happens to be his miniscule role. That apart, the surprises don’t end.
 
Remember how in school students copied from others to score enough to pass? Well, Abbas-Mustan are those students who indeed copy from a topper, and still manage to fail. The duo would have been better off making their own original film. Because when you've watched the original, there are some expectations, and Players fails to even deliver a decent Bollywood version of the original.
The awful acting, painful dialogues and tedious special effects do not help the cause of this washed out Bollywood remake. 
The saving grace of the film happens to be its action, but it can only earn the film half a star. Players is a forgettable experience and it has to be the worst to come out of Abbas-Mastan’s stables. The story of the film carries an inconsistent pace, which is a big no-no for any film and despite its fast moments the plot lands up nowhere. In their quest to add multiple turns and twists to the film, the filmmakers have managed to confuse themselves and end up going all over the place.
 
The film is about a group of thieves that aims to rob train compartment full of gold bars which are shipped from one country to another. While trying to make the robbery look convincing, the plot seems to have taken an absurd turn. The plot has so many inconsistencies with reality,  that it would be wise to exercise a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ often associated with the Romantic era in poetry. 
 
Speaking of performances,Neil Neitin Mukesh leads a pack of hammers who frequently use the word ‘predictable’, oh the irony! The predictability spreads like a virus and the only character untouched by the predictable obsession of predictability is the one portrayed by Deol and that's only because he doesn't talk! Neil, tries his best to act and play dirty but somehow he seems to manage to look like a loser. Bachchan looks like he will break into a romantic song any moment even when he is delivering a fierce action scene. Sonam’s stylist should have worked harder, for sure.
 
Of course the film has its moments depending on what you want from the film. Bips in a red bikini on a beach is a treat, while Sonam manages to deliver a few good expressions. Johhny Lever’s ‘Ramu Kaka’ and a few action sequences make the film slightly bearable.
 
But when you see terrible CGI and bad editing ruining what ought to be a gripping action scene, it is easy to lose those bearable moments. The scene where a fan blows Deol's hair as he supposedly stands atop a moving train in Russia, you can't help but wonder. Aren’t these the same specials effects that were used when my dad was a teenager?