LUDO
So today I watched by far the most entertaining movie of this year.
Apart from length which could have been short by 10-15mins and Anurag acting as a narrator which felt dumb, it scored well. Overall, I’d say it is definitely something you should not miss at any cost, so I won't reveal the plot in details here.
Four sides of the game intertwined with all the Different Sides and Emotions of Life. The movie captures all the frame beautifully, a well written Screeplay.
It takes a while to understand why a murder has happened and why a person gets implicated, why a couple seeks help to remove their intimate video online, why a little girl planning her own kidnapping and how Sattu Bhaiya (Played by Pankaj Tripathi), the ruthless gangster is plotting action like playing dice in a game of Ludo.To represent every character with the Ludo solid Colour just like that every character has an accent of colour in the background or around them like aditya roy Kapur has yellow, Abhishek Bachchan has Red, Rajkummar has Green and Rohit Suresh Has Blue.Just like if you have seen Johnny Gaddar in which Sriram Raghavan Has Used Red colour in Background in every shot.
It is a well executed film on the themes of Samuel Becket's Waiting for Godot. They run the gamut from the human condition to absurdism, nihilism, and friendship. Basu has done a good job combining humor and human suffering, the similarities between saint and sinner, and living one's life with the everpresent knowledge of death. Even his two observers (unseen by the cast of characters) loosely mirror Godot's Vladimir and Estragon. And he has done this with a sharpness of wit and a sense of style that verges on parody of Bollywood's films like Gangs of Wasseypur, quite an accomplishment in itself. The intersecting and overlapping lives of the characters told in non-chronological order leave the viewer with many "AHA" moments.You get engrossed in the stories of each & every person and start living it with them. You feel bad for Rajkumar Rao when he keeps making a fool of himself, want to cry along with Abhishek Bachchan when he sees his daughter, keep loving & hating Pankaj Tripathi depending on the hat he's wearing at that time- of gangster or lover, and keep wondering about Basu's character till the end.Yes it has a Tarantino-inspired shootout scene, but there are moments of magic created by Anurag that strongly tug at your emotional strings.
Songs like 'Aabaad Barbaad' and 'harpal Hamdam' are melodious and heart warming and are placed at the perfect situation in the movie. But the use of an old song ' Oo Betaji...' was the masterstroke as it sets the tone of the movie.
Very few filmmakers pull off the Dark Comedy genre, which is not attempted often in Bollywood. Movies like Delhi Belly, Andhadhun, Kaalakaandi, Dev D standout. Ludo, directed by Anurag Basu, deserves a similar appreciation because Basu has done a commendable job with his direction.
Ludo is an adventurous rollercoaster of four wild divergent stories into a single narrative, which answers the questions of ‘Karma and Dharma’. Basu has intelligently done crisscrossing of the characters, just like we see while playing the board game ludo.
In a nutshell, ludo is a feel-good dark comedy with refreshing music, credible acting, and quirky elements.
Ratings:7/10*
Verdict:Bollywood missed a 100cr movie