Ludo Review
Largely entertaining, with an in-form Anurag Basu
Writers: Anurag Basu (story and screenplay), Samrat Chakraborty (dialogue)
Stars: Pankaj Tripathi, Abhishek Bachchan, Rajkummar Rao
Ludo is a Hindi movie released on 12 Nov, 2020. The movie is directed by Anurag Basu and featured Abhishek Bachchan, Rajkummar Rao, Aditya Roy Kapur and Pankaj Tripathi as lead characters.
From a resurfaced sex tape to a rogue suitcase of money, four wildly different stories overlap at the whims of fate, chance and one eccentric criminal.
Ludo begins on a prophetic note. The local don of the area, Sattu celebrates a not-so-clean kill by singing along to Bhagwan Dada’s song, O Beta Ji, from perhaps the biggest hit of his career, Albela. The actor, whose dance steps reportedly inspired Amitabh Bachchan early in his career, found immense fame and wealth after the film – a 25-room sea-facing bungalow in Juhu, Mumbai, and a fleet of fancy cars. And then, as it happens in life and tragedies, he lost it all. The man who lived so lavishly spent his last days in a dingy chawl, doing bit roles in films, forsaken by his famous friends.
Anurag Basu uses the song many times in, to underline how fate is a cruel mistress. With word and in spirit, the song becomes a part of the metaphor that Ludo is intended to be. It is a strange metaphor to pick when your story is weighing good and evil, and cause and effect while throwing chaos theory in the mix by way of mythology. Yes, Basu is overreaching, which is perhaps his best and worst quality as a director. The befuddling but zany Jagga Jasoos is a case in point -- few films are as polarising as that musical about a boy detective.
Ludo, despite its missteps, keeps it breezy, with its cast helping it to stay the course. With Pankaj Tripathi, Rajkummar Rao, Abhishek Bachchan, Shalini Vatsa, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sanya Malhotra and Aditya Roy Kapur, it takes some time to set its world, and reveal the connections.
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