Too many romantic comedies are being released on the big as well as small screens of late. Yet, there is very little novelty on offer. Every week, we see a new onscreen couple, who are unaware of how compatible they are until they have a big fight, followed by the most predictable of reunions. Netflix’s new film, Players, isn’t too different. The characters, their interests and occupations are all interestingly uncommon, but the central play of the film is news to nobody.
Mack (Gina Rodriguez) and her pack of guy friends play ‘wing-people’ for each other, as they come up with one-night stands and hook-up schemes. But, when Mack meets Nick (Tom Ellis), she wants to go beyond casual dating. How she and her friends ‘play’ to convince Nick that she’s the right one for him is the rest of the plot.
Players starts by creating quite the curiosity about how these bunch of early 30-year-olds make their way in and out of casual flings. Their friendship is atypical in the sense that they are also colleagues—all journalists, which means they spend pretty much every day together. Mack is a sportswriter, Adam (Damon Wayans Jr) handles visuals, while Brannagan (Augustus Prew) does obituaries. Nick is a war correspondent, but the best fit in this group is Little/Ryan (Joel Courtney), Brannagan’s brother, who just hangs around with them. This cluster of companions is the most creatively written aspect of the film, as their dynamics add value to the screenplay.
While all of this initial momentum is great, the film eventually settles into the halls of familiarity. We have seen this game before, where the girl has a boy who loves her, but is too blind to see that. Instead, she goes chasing after another before realising it was always the first boy all along. With the romance lacking in originality, Players’s writing strengths lie only in its comedy, be it the absurd relationship of the brothers, Brannagan and Little, or a scene where the underused Liza Koshy freaks out crazy to crack us up.
The film goes a tad bit overboard with sports references, particularly baseball and the Yankees. Non-sport-loving audiences, especially in India, may find it unable to relate to it. So, with its somewhat effective comedy and the unoriginal love story, Players only manages to live up to the final part of a quote from the film itself… “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose.”
Players
Director: Trish Sie
Genre: Romantic comedy
Platform: Netflix
Language: English
Rating: 2/5