Speed limit. Staged accident. Acting natural. Awfully nice. Game just added one more to the list of oxymorons — boring thriller.

Ambitious in scale, disastrous in everything else, Game is all style, little substance and very little sense. It’s a film that takes itself too seriously and is yet never serious enough to have a plot that is credible and edge-of-the-seat. Debutant director Abhinay Deo sacrifices tension and thrill at the altar of flashy camera frames and adrenaline-pumping car chases and leaves us with a film that comes off superficial, staged and often brain-dead.

One suspects that Deo and writer Althea Delmas Kaushal thought up Game after a night of intense DVD-watching. Agatha Christie to the Ocean’s franchise, 007 to Abbas-Mustan thrillers, Game’s inspirations are too many to count. But what translates on screen is so amateurish that even your pet dog could unravel this whodunnit by reel three.

It isn’t easy putting Game together in a coherent narrative, but let’s give it a try. Business baron Kabir Malhotra (Anupam Kher) — we are told half-a-dozen times that his net worth is a cool 10 billion Euros — sends four strangers, from four different parts of the world, a cryptic invitation to spend a night on his Greek island. Each of the four — superstar Vikram Kapoor (Jimmy Shergill) from Mumbai, Istanbul-based casino owner Neil Menon (Abhishek Bachchan), crime journalist and Alcoholics Anonymous member Tisha Khanna (Shahana Goswami) from London and Thailand’s prime-minister-in-waiting .P. Ramsay (Boman Irani) — has a dark secret. They land up on the island, little suspecting what is in store for them. When the introvert billionaire is found dead the next morning, the four realise that their troubles have just begun. And the viewers’ too.

If the first 15 minutes are any indication, Game could have been an intriguing tale of deceit and deception, lies and betrayal. Blame it on Sanjay Gupta and his films — from Kaante to Acid Factory — but every Bollywood maker treading the action thriller path now tends to invest all attention and energy into making the characters super cool and super stylish. Even in Game, everyone moves in slo-mo, stares intensely into the camera and mouths supposedly cool lines that make little sense (like a bad product placement, the characters say: “It’s a game” or “Let the game begin” every 10 minutes). It may be a little over just two hours, but Game does make you check your watch pretty often.

In fact, Game would have worked much better as a travelogue. From the buzzing floating markets of Bangkok to the vibrant spice bazaars of Istanbul, from the sun-kissed waters of Samos to the seamy nightlife of Mumbai, Game is one eye-pleasing frame after another. A five-minute chase-on-foot sequence through the busy bylanes of Istanbul is one of the rare moments when the film makes you stir from slumber and sit up in your multiplex seat. But for the rest, there are regular bouts of zzzzzzz.

The average acting doesn’t help Game’s cause. A perpetual frown and a stinging glare add up to intensity in Abhishek Bachchan’s dictionary. His street-smart Neil could have made for one helluva delicious character, but Bachchan Jr overdoes the smugness to the point of irritation. This ain’t no Bond film and Bachchan ain’t no 007. Deo does try to invest Neil with layers — a Chelsea fan who reads Murakami — but Abhishek’s performance is too linear to make Neil any kind of a flesh-and-blood person. By the time his real identity is revealed, you couldn’t care less.

If you can get past the stilted dialogue delivery and the heavily accented English, Kangana is the only one who manages to hold your attention through a large part of the mayhem (she also manages to hold on to that pout even with a bullet in her back). But Kangana is no Jolie and despite the power suits and the smart walk and talk, this gun-toting intelligence officer doesn’t quite rise above the mediocre script.

Boman Irani and Jimmy Shergill function as mere props and Anupam Kher cops it within the first 15 minutes. Debutante Sarah Jane Dias manages two expressions — deadpan and even more deadpan. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music — with the exception of the romantic Shaan number Maine ye kab socha tha — is as average as the film.

Want to experience the real game this weekend? Ditch this one, tune into Wankhede.

Priyanka Roy
Did you like/ not like Game? Tell t2@abp.in