Neil’s Villainous Role In Players To Wipe All

Neil Nitin Mukesh’s patience seems to have paid off. Though his last release LAFANGEY PARINDEY (which had arrived close to a year and a half ago) was a decent success, he faced a few torrid months ahead with not much exciting coming his way. The sole biggie in his hand was PLAYERS and it was nothing less than a gamble that he played. Guess this worked in his favour because if insiders are to be believed, he has totally stolen the show in this thrilling affair.

“He plays a villain in PLAYERS and if one goes by the track record of Abbas-Mustan, in each of their films villains have a strong part to play,” comments an expert, “If you look at some of their major films in the past, the actor enacting the character of a villain has always walked away with all the laurels. Whether it was Shahrukh Khan (BAAZIGAR), Arbaaz Khan (DARAAR), Akshay Kumar (AJNABEE), Priyanka Chopra (AETRAAZ) or Akshaye Khanna (HUMRAAZ) – each of these actors has stolen the show whenever they have been required to turn grey or be out and out black.”

“Since Neil’s character is based on the same character as that of Edward Norton in THE ITALIAN JOB, one can well expect the actor to have made full use of the opportunity made available to him. After all, all those who have had a dekko at the Hollywood thriller are well aware of the fact that even with Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron in the film, Edward Norton had come up trumps,” he continues.

Given the fact that Neil himself has proved his mettle with negative roles earlier, case in point being JOHNNY GADDAAR and to some extent even 7 KHOON MAAF (where he played the army-man husband of Priyanka Chopra), one does wait to check out who indeed turns out to be a ‘real player’ here! Source