Old wine, new bottle

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Cast: Director: Rating: HH
Game is just another old wine in a new bottle. Only this time debutant director Abhinay Deo has pepped it up with slick and fast paced action scenes and glorious locations. The plot of Game opens in Thailand traversing through other international cities of the world by introducing the main characters of the film. But somehow the director loses grip as the story unfolds.

Billionaire Kabir Malhotra (Anupam Kher) and his secretary Samara Shroff assemble four people to his owned Samos Island in Greece. Constituting the four are, Neil Menon (Abhishek Bachchan) a hot-shot casino owner from Istanbul who is a drug lord on the sly, Bollywood star Vikram Kapoor (Jimmy Shergill), crime journalist from London, Tisha Khanna (Shahana Goswami) and a prime ministerial candidate from Thailand, O.P. Ramsay (Boman Irani). Malhotra holds Vikram, Neil and Ramsay responsible for his daughter Maya’s (Sarah Jane Dias) murder and threatens to expose them all. His biggest revelation is kept aside for Tisha who he claims to be his daughter and Maya her twin sister. But Tisha refutes his affections. The next morning, Malhotra is found dead in what looks like a clear case of suicide. Enters chief investigating officer Sia Agnihotri (Kangna Ranaut). Sia watches all the tapes that Malhotra has recorded of his interactions with the assembled four. But since she finds no proof she has to let them go scot-free. Sia decides to keep a watch on all four! What happens as real identities are revealed forms the remaining part of the film.
Despite the plot oscillating constantly between Greece, Thailand, United Kingdom and India, Game begins on a very slow note. The script is full of loopholes and subplots that tend to confuse you. Farhan Akhtar’s dialogues don’t really raise it either.
Rather than taking you by surprise the revelation of the lead character’s ends up on a hilarious note. Most of the scenes in the film are mundane and actually predictable! Technically, Abhinay Deo is fantastic but the script is below average. So the director could not do much with the film. In fact, some situations are outright foolish and there is very little he could do to uplift them. Abhishek’s chase sequence in Istanbul is a rip of The International (2009) shot on same location.
Abhishek tries his best to come up with a measured performance. Kangna could have been much better but, unfortunately, she does not have much scope to perform. Many a times she looks clueless in the film. Similarly, Anupam Kher, who plays the character of Kabir Malhotra, fails to inspire conviction. Boman Irani, who enacts the part of a Thai politician, is good. Sara Jane Dias, the gorgeous actress who makes her acting debut with this flick, does not get much scope. However, she does lighten up the screen with her presence and her dance number. Shahana Goswami and Jimmy Shergill are hardly given any space or chance to show their acting skills. Gauhar Khan as the secretary in her tiny role is very convincing. Despite having such good stars in the film Abhinay Deo could not eke out good performances.
The promos of the film showed a lot of promise as a gripping thriller, unfortunately it is anything but that. Abhinay Deo has made a lot of effort to make a good film but somewhere he got too busy with making every frame stylish. Karthik Vijay’s cinematography is impressive, whereas Shankar Ehsaan and Loy’s music hardly register itself.
Well this Game is definitely not interesting nor does it deliver a good finale. Watch the movie if you have nothing else to do over the weekend.