Game

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan,Soniya Jehan,Jimmy Sheirgill,Sarah Jane Dias,Shahana Goswami,Sikander Kher,Kangna Ranaut,Anupam Kher,Boman Irani,Gauhar Khan

Director: Abhinay Deo

The movie GAME is jointly produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Shidwani. The movie is directed by Abhinay Deo. The famous trio of Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy are in the charge of creating the music for the songs. None other than, Javed Akhtar have taken up the responsibility of penning the lyrics for the songs of the movie. The star cast of the movie is pretty interesting and includes few of the biggest and most talented names of Bollywood. The ex Miss India Sarah Jane Dias, Jimmy Shergill, Boman Irani, Shahana Goswami, Soniya Jehan, Abhishek Bachchan, Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Gauhar Khan and Sikander Kher are part of the acting members of the flick.

The movie belongs to action and murder mystery genre. As far as the trailers are concerned, the movie seems to be sleek and cool. The plot of the movie narrates the lives of four strangers who become suspect of a murder and as the movie progresses the audience learn that each of them have a motive for murder. Abhishek plays the role of a drug lord in the movie. Jimmy plays a movie star, Shahana has the role of a journalist while Boman Irani is a politician in the movie. Game is a whodunit suspense thriller. At least it is supposed to be one. There is murder and there is a suspense game as you wonder who may have done it even as forensics say it was a mere suicide. So you have suspects, you have an investigator and you have twists in the tale.

Neil (Abhishek Bachchan), Vikram (Jimmy Shergil), Tisha (Shahana), OP Ramsay (Boman Irani) are called on to a private island in Greece by Kabir Malhotra (Anupam Kher) for different reasons. However on reaching there they learn that Kabir has different motives. He seeks revenge for his dead daughter. All the four people are in some way related to his daughter Maya (Sarah). Meanwhile Sia (Kangna) of the international vigilance squad is investigating the case. No denial that there is a good deal of suspense around who may be the murderer. But the writing is severely at fault for the lack of thrill as the story progresses. Also the characters are not backed well enough. Neil's character is the sketchiest. While he is shown to be a night club owner with people gunning after him he also other realities which don't fit too well. Same with Vikram his desperation to get a big role despite being a well established star.

What's good about Game is technically strong. It has been shot elaborately and edited as stylishly. The director's intent to make it stylish is clear and also successful. The performances too are highlights. Kangna, who just had a hit in Tanu Weds Manu, put up a better performance in Game. Abhishek Bachchan is suave and smart, Jimmy is skillful. Anupam Kher and Shahana Goswami are good. Gauhar Khar chips in. There are also some interesting dialogues written by Farhan Akhtar a very important part as there as some major clues dropped in here and there. Game has a strategic release as it is the first A-grade movie, along with FALTU, to hit the screens after the month long break due to the cricket world cup. And it has enough time to recover its money before the IPL kicks in. Plus the sleek is appealing for people who love such films. Director Abhinay Deo deserves full points here.

However, as pointed earlier, it lacks the thrill. So every time there is a twist revealed you would like it, but at no point will you be at the edge of your seats waiting for it. No thriller here. Let's just say it is more like a very ordinary cricket match, which does not hold interest for anyone except die-hard cricket fans; in this case people who love watching sleek suspense dramas. 'Game' could well be considered as amalgamation of two different styles of film making coming together. While the first half belongs to 'this is indeed serious business' variety for the mature thinking audience, the second half takes a comic book approach which is more appealing to teenagers and youth. Just like 'Race' where Abbas-Mustan didn't take time in opening their cards, even 'Game' has Abhinay Deo setting the basic premise of the film within first 20-25 minutes. One would have expected that Anupam Kher would reveal the reason behind calling four absolute strangers Abhishek Bachchan, Boman Irani, Jimmy Shergill and Shahana Goswami only towards the interval point. However there is no time wasted in not just revealing the background of these characters but also the chilling flashback (featuring Sarah Jane Dias) that started it all.

Just when audience starts wondering whether Abhinay had revealed it all too soon too fast, a murder takes place that further deepens the mystery. Arrival of Kangna an investigating officer on the scene further perks up the drama. A series of murders and suicides start taking place that only thickens the plot. One of the most interesting sequences here is the one where Boman Irani is trapped via a sting operation. Of course there are quite a few cinematic liberties being taken which makes one feel like watching a comic book affair. At one moment the characters are in Mumbai, the second moment they are in London and then there are flashbacks being interspersed where drama moves to Istanbul. Really, at some points here it becomes difficult to keep track of the series of events.

This is where the fast paced approach by Abhinay comes into picture. Especially towards the last 20 minutes of the film, there are twists and turns practically every 5 minutes which, though interesting, seem a little too simplistic to be enjoying every practical reasoning. Nevertheless, as stated earlier, by this time around you know that the film was never meant to be taken too seriously. An attempt was basically to make a cool good looking film and in this endeavour, 'Game' indeed succeeds. The same cannot be said though about the music of the film which turns out to be a big yawn on screen. Also at times the film gets bogged down during the flashback portions featuring elements of love story between Abhishek and Sarah.

Abhishek dominates the proceedings as he boasts of some smart dialogged and body language. He is pretty much at ease playing a cool and matured man here. Sarah makes a decent debut though she doesn't quite get much scope. Kangna is strictly okay. Boman Irani is good. Jimmy suffers from an ill sketched part. Shahana is hardly there while Gauhar Khan has limited presence in the film. Anupam Kher eats up everyone around in each of his major scenes in the film. The beginning portions of 'Game' give an impression of a really intriguing suspense drama in the offing while as the film nears it's culmination, it appears as if the overzealous writer wanted to bring out all tricks from his magic bag. Result? A film which could have been better off had it stuck to one style of narrative but turns out to be reasonably entertaining nonetheless.‘What a story!’ Abhishek Bachchan, playing a cross between a fugitive and a guardian angel, says wrily at the end of this elegantly crafted whodunit.

What a story, indeed. And full marks to writer Althea Delmas Kaushal for crafting a jigsaw that would have made Agatha Christie smile. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say, they don’t make movies like this anymore. Stylishly crafted, cunning in plot and deft in its narrative thrust, ‘Game’ is one of the most aesthetically mounted Hindi films in recent times. Huge efforts and resources have gone into shooting the murder mystery in places where intrigue seems infinite, escape seems undesirable and redemption appears as distant as the sound of the waves splashing against rocks that have centuries of stories to tell. Welcome to the Greek island of Samos. Anupam Kher, looking pricey in his tycoon’s avatar invites four of the most distinguished elitist-outlaws on this side of Charles Sobhraj. Each has a past tense and a future imperfect. Everyone has a history and a back-projection. This is a world defined by a wealth of unexpressed resentment and smothered anger waiting to erupt. Debutant director Abhinay Deo displays a remarkable grip over the proceedings. Though the narrative moves through a number of continents and exotic cities (Istanbul jumps out at us from the James Bond movies) propelling his tortured characters forward into motions of restless salvation, there is a quietude and grace at the heart of the narration that we’ve scarcely ever seen in desi whodunits.

The crime and its denouement are worked in graphic details. But the narrative is never bogged down by over-punctuation. For a crime thriller that pays a homage to the best traditions of the genre represented by Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and James Hadley Chase, there is a tightly-wound feel to the storytelling, as though the director were moving contrary to the dictates of the genre, without slipping up with the details. If god lies in the details then why does the devil seem to have taken over ‘Game’? At heart ‘Game’ is a love story about a high-profile gambler and his doomed lady love a kind of Bonnie and Clyde with the inherent desperation of the duo’s togetherness reined-in and qualified by ripples of elegant punctuation. No hiccups, then, in Abhinay Deo’s directorial debut. Like all cinema by filmmakers who come from the ad-world ‘Game’ is a visual feast. Contrary to films by other ad-turned-feature director Deo doesn’t unnecessarily abbreviate the shots in the fear of losing audiences’ attention. The characters, specially Abhishek Bachchan’s, get sufficient breathing space in a script that favours flirting with fate.

There is a delicacy in the textures and colours used to bring forward the tensions in the plot. Shashank Tere’s art direction and Kartik Vijay’s cinematography imbue a gritty cold edge to the spill of blood and the smell of greed. The portions shot on the Greek island are particularly hypnotic, the splashing waves creating a ripple of anxieties in the turbulence of the characters’ lives without toppling the storytelling boat over into the sphere of the stormy.

Whether it is Anupam Kher as tycoon-host on the mesmeric island or Gauhar Khan as his seductive secretary, the characters never cease to appear glamorous on screen. The performers are eminently watchable. Anupam Kher, Kangna Ranaut, Boman Irani, Shahana Goswami and the underrated Jimmy Sheirgil get the tenor of tantalizing terror right. Sarah Jane Dias is quite a find, though she needs to work on her dancing skills. Her fabulously choreographed dance number suffers from the Two Left Feet Syndrome (hint hint!). Abhishek Bachchan proves once again a master of silences, his eyes conveying the pain of lost love, his lips curling up to convey the cynicism of a man who has seen it all and couldn’t care anymore. His two key action sequences are heart-stopping in their credibility. Waltzing wickedly between the incredible and the inevitable ‘Game’ succeeds in sustaining our interest right till the devilish denouement at the end. ‘Game’ is a film that never lets us forget that the whodunit attains an enticing aura only when the characters assume framed postures. Abhinay Deo’s narrative walks a fine thin bloodied balance between dread and delight.