Ludo Movie Review: Anurag Basu Black Comedy, Watch on Netflix

 

Ludo Movie Review:  Anurag Basu Black Comedy, Watch on Netflix

 

Ludo Movie Review

Ludo Movie Review

Whatever faults you might find in an  Anurag Basu film, lack of invention is not one of them.  The director creates worlds filled with whimsy and wonder, set to Pritam’s pulsating soundscape.  Think of the blend of surreal, sad and funny in his last film Jagga Jasoos.  I go into Anurag’s films expecting the unexpected and he rarely fails to surprise.

 In Ludo, he creates a mash-up of stories, sensibilities, tonalities.  He returns to the multiple-story format, which he had used in his 2007 film Life in a… Metro.  Using the game of Ludo as metaphor and structural skeleton, Anurag, who also wrote the film, constructs four interlocking stories.  The twists in one impact the other.  There is so much going on that Anurag himself appears as sutradhar, delivering exposition, explanation  and also spelling out the big themes the film is grappling with –  notions of good and evil, crime and punishment,  love, death, murder, sacrifice.  All of which is done in a mood of dry self-awareness, outlandish humor and eye-popping colour –  incidentally Anurag is also the DoP of the film.

 There is enough here for several movies.  Which is perhaps why the first thirty minutes or so are all set-up  and then Ludo takes another two hours to pull all the strands together.  That’s a long time to sustain the rollercoaster experience that Anurag is trying to create.  Inevitably, the energy flags, the plot twists start to feel strained and the length weighs the film down.  The writing is also uneven – some of the characters are delightful and others, bland.  Their actions sneaking into a hotel room to have sex or stealing loot from a criminal, might be dangerous or exciting,  but they themselves don’t have enough personality to keep you interested in their shenanigans.   

In this frantic and crowded film, the standouts are Aalu and Pinky, played by Rajkummar Rao and Fatima Sana Shaikh,  Sattu bhaiyya, the trigger-happy don,  played by Pankaj Tripathi  and Lata Kutty, a senior nurse played by Shalini Vatsa.  Aalu has been besotted by Pinky since their school days.  Even after she’s been married for three years and had a child, Aalu remains a devotee, going to her house to look at her every day.  Aalu is a Bachchan fan, but because Pinky likes Mithun Chakraborty, Aalu models himself after the actor, with a hairstyle straight out of Disco Dancer.  There is such sweetness in his longing. Of course, Aalu is an emotional fool,  but Rajkummar doesn’t play him for laughs.  We root for Aalu to find happiness.  Fatima is equally good as Pinky, a woman blissfully unaware of the  havoc she is creating. It’s a hoot to watch them.  Pankaj has played a don so many times, from Gurgaon to Mirzapur, that I’m afraid he might be getting typecast.  And yet, he manages to infuse a  singular charm and eccentricity into Sattu. 

Anurag also gives him some of the film’s best lines – at one point, when the chips are down, Sattu says:  When life suck, everyone fuck. Which is such valuable gyaan, that someone should put it on a t-shirt.  Later in the film, Sattu, who packs a pistol on his thigh, shows us that even he has a vulnerable side.  It’s hilarious.  Shalini as Lata, a tough-love caregiver, is bang-on.  The rest of the characters work erratically.  Aditya Roy Kapur has some nice, goofy moments playing Akash, a ventriloquist, who is so laid back that the woman he loves, Shruti,  tells him that the problem isn’t that he isn’t rich in the present, the problem is that he will never be rich.

  Sanya Malhotra as Shruti, a woman desperate to marry a rich man, is lovely  and yet their love story lacks sparkle.  They are casual about it and so are we.  Abhishek Bachchan as Bittu, a criminal who tried to go straight,  but failed, summons a tragic toughness,  which might remind you of Lallan Singh in Yuva.  Abhishek’s track involves a little girl so emotions run high, but the attempt to tug at your heartstrings shows.  The cuteness feels forced.  Rohit Saraf as Rahul, an ordinary, small-town boy, gets one of the funniest scenes in the film – it involves a dead naked body.  But again, Rahul’s romance with Sheeja, a nurse from Kerala, works intermittently.  Multiple narrative films present a formidable challenge to the editor  and Ajay Sharma does a fine job of stitching the various stories together,  with some skillful transitions.

 As always, Pritam’s music plays a key role.  There aren’t any lip-sync songs, which I missed,  but my favorite songs Aabaad Barbaad and Hardum Humdum are used to thread together the emotions of the various characters.  In the climax, Anurag, perhaps taking  inspiration from Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitan  and Sriram Raghavan’s Agent Vinod, stages a full-blown action sequence to song.  It's a fitting finale to this absurdist tragi-comedy.  In an early scene in the film, a song from the 1951 blockbuster Albela is playing on a television set.  The actor Bhagwan, in a chef’s outfit, is singing about qismat ki hawa, which can sometimes be naram and sometimes garam.  Like the hawa, Ludo is also kabhi naram and kabhi garam. But the film leaves you with a smile on your face.  And right now, that goes a long way. You can watch Ludo on Netflix.   

Ludo Movie Director : Anurag Basu

Ludo Movie Cast : Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Rajkumar Rao, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sanya Malhotra, Asha Negi, Pankaj Tripathi, Aman Bhagat

Ludo Movie Release on Netflix