Director: Anurag Basu
Cast: Pankaj Tripathi, Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Rajkumar Rao, Shalini Vatsa, Fatima Sheikh, Sanya Malhotra, Bhanu Uday, Rohit Saraf, Asha Negi, Pearle Maaney & others.
Have to confess, all this while I’d been under the foolish impression that Ludo is an Anurag Kashyap film, until the opening credits flashed! No idea why, but the teaser had that Kashyap kind of touché.
The other Anurag ie Basu is no less a maverick film maker, here he combines four parallel tracks that keep bumping into each other leading to a climax where all ‘accidentally’ meet-up. Basu has experimented in the past and going by his instincts he’ll surely keep experimenting for as long as he makes movies, this one is an over the top black comedy, nobody’s complaining as it’s meant to be over the top, colourful, sometimes loud, at times incomprehensible and most times entertaining.
Basu does a commendable job, thankfully the humour is managed responsibly, nothing slapstick, thoroughly ‘black’ and beautiful. The way Basu has picturised his songs further cements his expertise in understanding the ‘rhythm’ so well.
The actors are in fine form led by Pankaj Tripathi playing a gangster with effortless ease, Rao in a role which is supposed to have an Mithun Chakraborty hangover looks more inspired by Shah Rukh Khan, but he’s played it quite well. The only sore thumb is Junior Bachchan, he’s got the best role an author backed character with some of the best scenes and he’s so bad you want to shake him up and ask him to emote! There’s one scene for instance between Bachchan and Asha Negi where she’s mouthing all the dialogues and the camera is fixated on him throughout (Blank face, zilch expressions, wooden look, emotionless eyes) any other competent actor would’ve excelled but not a complacent Baba Bachchan!
Considering it’s an ensemble cast it’s not fair to judge the entire product basis one defaulter, it’s a pretty decent and entertaining attempt from Basu, and it’s always great to see film makers like him pushing the envelope a little further.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
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