Players (2024)

User Review

• 

  d_riptide

  2 / 10

  No need to menace words: “Players” is another second-hand level embarrassment that Netflix has nobody to blame but themselves for. At best, at the absolute bare minimum, it’s just another bland, predictable romcom but at worst, it’s more than just that: it’s a sleazy, immature, watered-down and drawn out version of that Playbook episode from HIMYM and it’s nothing short of insipid.
  
  
  I cannot forgive how easily and mawkishly this film’s story goes out of its way to either incorrectly or flat-out fail to incorporate any constructive criticism to realistic dating culture on a near pathological scale. Humor and ridiculous scheming to trick people into relationships is the entire priority behind this messy-ass script and the writing doesn’t even try to disguise how off-putting and inauthentic every moment of every scene is executed. Not much meat is on the bones for this plot and you quickly get the sense of how thin and pointless the entire exercise is no less than 20 minutes in; I don’t care how predictable you already know it’s gonna be, there is hardly any reason for what happened here to carry on for 105 minutes and in a manner this directionless with an unearned ending.
  
  The crux of this story centering around these tasteless and crass people, I’m convinced, was meant to be the entire point and I know the film intended to hammer home that sentiment of honesty being the best policy when you’re on the dating circuit and trying to land a partner for a night or beyond but would it kill you to at least make me care about anybody here first? If they’re not poorly developed, they’re just straight-up assholes with the personality of dried Kleenex tissues.
  
  Look, people in rom-com land get themselves in trouble from pretending to be something they’re not all the time but they really pushed the envelope here to fulfill those creaky machinations; the film doesn’t even work as a compelling sports drama or a comedy for that matter. It works even less as a romance which is damning since that’s what the ENTIRETY OF THIS STORY IS CENTERED AROUND.
  
  
  
  There’s no savvy sense of finesse or charm radiating from whatever sense of direction Trisha Sie was able to salvage and she’s unable to daisy-chain a proper rhythm or pace together so everything can flow smoothly.
  
  
  
  Editing and cinematography usage here is reminiscent of the typical bad early 2000’s rom-com and it damn sure feels like it a few minutes in; maybe if the production design didn’t look so much like window dressing, I would’ve been more on the up-and-up about it.
  
  Most of it’s comedy and dialogue are aggressively eye rolling and the former only works by complete accident, the music choices are every bit as on the nose as the tropes and cliches are, and again, its entire foray of an ensemble are focused more on caricatures than characters; they’re one-dimensional at best, completely duplicitous, lazy and entitled at worst, especially when talking about Mack’s character.
  
  The soundtrack does most of the heavy lifting for whatever “emotional heft” the movie strives to have and the acting is begrudgingly pretty solid with the chemistry they share with one another feeling genuine.
  
  
  
  Outside of all that, what really is there to this movie? It’s harmless but that doesn’t make it good.

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