: My quick take on Anurag Basu’s latest experiment “LUDO”
Looks like Jagga ‘jasoos’ has sucked out creative ‘juice’ out Anurag Basu’s cranium, that he has come out with such a ludicrous experimental plot wherein he has tried to repeat his “Life in a metro’s concept” of having four independent stories running simultaneously and in the climax all these stories cross each other. The four stories represent the four different colored pawns of a Ludo game (red, blue, green, and yellow), and mind you who are playing this board game? it’s the God of Kaal (time) Yama and his sidekick Chitragupta.
I loved the concept of Yama and Chitragupta pulling the stings of these pawns and taking the movie forward, however, I wish there was some sensible substance in these four stories. Anurag Basu has played God here as he is the producer, writer, director, actor (Yama), Cinematographer (new avatar) & narrator as well.
On the very few positives of the movies, one is the beautiful outdoor photography (it will remind you of barfi), the second could be the hummable songs done by Pritam. That’s all, rest everything is simply ludicrous. Of the huge ensemble of stars (had to be; because of four different story tracks), there is one cute little girl who has done a pretty good job, unfortunately even she will not be able to watch her movie till she becomes 16+. This is where the writer Basu has failed as he came up with an ‘adultish’ story involving a ‘sex-tape’, had he avoided it then probably the movie would have fared well.
On the performance front, in track 1 a budding ventriloquist played by handsome Aditya Roy Kapoor who is one of the ‘performers’ in the tape and his partner in crime is ravishing Sanya Malhotra who is getting married to a rich guy within a couple of days. Both these set out on a mission to ‘take-off” this clip from the internet which has now become viral. Track 2 is of another odd couple played by overacting Rajkumar Rao and pretty dabang girl Fatima Sana Shaikh, here the Mithun impersonator Rao is still licking his wounds as his childhood heartthrob Fatima is now a married lady and has a child too. Track 3 is again of an odd couple played by Chota B and Asha Negi (?) where Chota B is in his Yuva / Raavan looks is a convict who returns home after 6 yrs of sentence only to find his wife is now happily married to his friend. The fourth track is of a clumsy goon played by Pankaj Tripathi and two newcomers. Pankaj is getting stereotyped as the “Kaalin” Bhai type of roles. Here too plays a local done with his usual charm. This track acts as a confluence where all other storylines come and meet.
There are some funny moments in the movies, unfortunately, these are very few. One can give full marks to Anurag Basu for coming out with such a novel concept, but the writer Basu failed him by coming out with lousy stories, actors tried their best with Rajkumar Rao in his ill-designed wig trying to ape gun master G-9, Fatima Sana Sheikh does a “Pappu” kind of character with ease, Aditya Roy Kapoor kept groping in his ill-developed character, Charming Sanya Malhotra had nothing else but to ‘bare’ herself, there were few more goofy characters in the movie who tried their best, the cherry on the cake was Pankaj Tripathi who despite repeating himself is watchable.
I am sure this Diwali you all will have better things to do,
hence you can avoid this ludicrous LUDO
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