Game (2014 Film)

''Game'' is a 2014 Indian Bengali-language action thriller film directed by Baba Yadav and produced and distributed by Reliance Entertainment and Grassroot Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. The film features actors Jeet, Subhashree Ganguly and Saurav Chakraborty in the lead roles. Songs for the film has been composed by Jeet Gannguli. The film is a remake of the 2012 Tamil film ''Thuppakki''.

Plot

Abhimanyu Chatterjee, a captain in the Indian Army, returns to Kolkata from Kashmir on vacation. On his arrival, his parents and younger sisters force him to see Trisha, who they choose for him to be married to. At the bride-viewing ceremony, Abhimanyu makes up excuses to avoid marrying her, which includes commenting about her being old-fashioned. On the contrary, Trisha is a college-level boxer, which is completely modern in her outlook. Abhimanyu realises this and proposes to her, which she reciprocates.

One day, while travelling around the city with his police officer-friend Santilal, Abhimanyu witnesses the explosion of a bus in which they had travelled. He manages to capture the man who laid the bomb, but he escapes from the hospital where he was kept under custody. He kidnaps the bomber again, and also forces the police officer who helped in the bomber's escape, to commit suicide. Abhimanyu soon learns that the bomber is a mere executor, a sleeper cell, whose only role was to plant the bomb. He also discovers that the Islamic terrorist group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, which the bomber belongs to, has planned various such attacks in the city in a couple of days. Enlisting the help of his fellow Army men and Shantilal, Abhimanyu manages to thwart these attacks and kill the sleeper cell leader's brother and eleven other terrorists, including the first sleeper cell.

When the leader of the terrorist group learns about the role of Abhimanyu in the failure of the terrorist attack, he begins to target the families of the army men, except Abhimanyu, by kidnapping someone close to them. When Abhimanyu realises the plan, he substitutes one of the people to be kidnapped, with his younger sister . Using his pet dog and his sister's Dupatta, he manages to reach the terrorists' hideout, rescuing his sister, who was about to be killed after Abhimanyu's bluff was exposed, and the other victims and eliminating the terrorists assembled there. Asif Ali, the second-in-command of the sleeper cells, is captured and killed by Abhimanyu.

When this attack fails, the terrorist leader decides to target Abhimanyu himself. He asks Abhimanyu to surrender to him or else there would be more terrorist attacks. Abhimanyu decides to sacrifice his life and devises a plan with his fellow army men. Ahimanyu meets the leader in a ship, which has been rigged with a bomb planted by Abhimanyu's friend. When he learns about the leader's plan, however, which is to expose Abhimanyu's army team as terrorists and knowing about a Muslim terrorist in the Indian defense — Vinod Sharma, he fights the leader and escapes with him in a boat. After the ship explodes, he kills the leader. Abhimanyu confronts Vinod Sharma and forces him to commit suicide, and later returns to Kashmir with his team.

Cast

Production

Jeet's role is that of an army officer for which he exercised for one-and-a-half months to prepare for the role. The film was shot in Kolkata and the title song was shot in Bolpur. The songs "Bum Chiki Chikni Chiki" and "Ore Manwa Re" were shot in Dubai. For the latter song, Jeet and Subhashree Ganguly shot on top of a 45-story building.

Soundtrack

The songs were composed by Jeet Gannguli. In an audio review for ''The Times of India'', Sutapa Singha rated the album 2/5 stars and wrote, "You know that phrase -it's quality, not quantity, that matters? Well, Game, with just four tracks, could have focused a little more on the quality factor. Alas, it fails in both respects". The critic also criticised the use of Hindi lyrics at the beginning of each song.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from the critics. A critic from ''The Times of India'' gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote "Game is an intelligent movie, with a lot of firepower and mindless fun. It's the kind of movie that doesn't, for a minute, make you regret why you bought that ticket. Give us a believable plot and we're game. And that's what Game is — believable, though your belief gets a bit stretched at times. But what else can you expect from a commercial masala flick? It has the right dose of romance, comedy, action and incredulity to make it big at the box office. The script is crisp, thanks to its Tamil film industry origins, and the pace is engaging." Shoma A. Chatterjee of ''The Indian Express'', wrote "There is a raw energy that drives the film towards it predictable climax. The ‘sister-kidnapping’ strategy as a process of blackmail could have been replaced with something more logical, intelligent and credible because terrorists generally keep away from kidnaps specially of girls because it renders them susceptible to greater media exposure and therefore identification".

Box office

The film collected ₹8.95 crore at the box office. The film also became the highest grossing Bengali film in 2014. The film underperformed in comparison to its budget reflecting a change in the audience's taste for "brazen" masala films.

See also

* ''Thuppakki'' 2012 film in Tamil.
* '' Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty'' 2014 film in Hindi.

References

External links

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Game Film
Bengali-language Indian films
2010s Bengali-language films
2014 films
Indian action thriller films
Bengali remakes of Tamil films
Films about military personnel
Indian Army in films
Films set in Kolkata
Films shot in Kolkata
Reliance Entertainment films
Films directed by Baba Yadav
2014 action thriller films
Films scored by Jeet Gannguli
Bengali-language action thriller films

Why did Game, a big banner co-production of Grassroot Entertainment and Reliance Pictures with Jeet, a top draw er Bengali star, fail to do business in proportion to its big budget and high production values? Other than the legendary single-screen theatre chain of Minar-Bijoli-Chhabighar, it is running in seven single-screen theatres in distant suburbs into its fourth week.

“We need solid scripts for a film to tug at the taste buds and the hearts of the audience. If there is no script such as Game, the film will not run. It is that simple,” says Gautam Jain, producer and event manager with a long track record in the industry. “Films are made and released by the dozens every month. But how many get their investments back? Most of them are forgotten by the end of the first week. The success of Ramdhanu proves that the audience is story-hungry, give it a good story and it will fill the theatres,” he sums up.
Film-maker Aniket Chatterjee, with funny entertainers like Bye Bye Bangkok and Godaye Gandogol says, “I am prepared to write a solid script for free for producers and directors who are dedicated to buying off copyrights of Southern films. Arundhati was a big hit in Telugu but the Bengali audience did not blink twice before rejecting the Bengali version. We have an extremely rich treasury of literature to draw from. Most of the films made during the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s have become classics. Game has been directed by Baba Yadav, a choreographer who cannot read, write or speak Bengali, knows nothing of the Bengali identity, the Bengali way of life, the language and the mindset so how can he made a good Bengali copy of a regional film, tell me? This was bound to happen som