Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Rajkummar Rao, Rohit Saraf, Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Pearle Maaney, Pankaj Tripathi
Director: Anurag Basu
It is the boardgame that is all too familiar to us all – red, blue, yellow and green corners go head to head on the roll of a dice to be the first to get home in the middle. ‘Ludo’ is expectedly set against similarly crafted four parallel and competing plotlines that collide as they race towards the finish line.
Akash Chauhan (Roy Kapur) is a carefree young lad who has cracked the concept of a not so wealthy yet happy life until his unconventional bond with a contrastingly money-minded Shruti Choksi (Malhotra) ends up on the internet in the form of a rather unsettling sex tape.
Bittu (Bachchan) is a bad boy turned good for the sake of love until his past catches up with him and lands him behind bars, leaving him loveless and angst-ridden.
Alok Kumar Gupta (Rao) is a local café owner and self-confessed disciple of yesteryears’ Bollywood star Mithun Chakraborty. He has modelled himself on Mithun-da all for the sake of the love of his life, married mother of one Pinky (Sana Shaikh).
And, while Rahul Awasthi (Saraf) is a down on his luck shopfloor assistant, Shreeja Thomas (Maaney) is a small-town nurse with dreams of making some mega bucks in the big city.
The lives of these characters, all with their own shades of complexities and complexes, are pulled together by one particular roll-of-the-dice force – Sattu Bhaiya (Tripathi), the local powerful don – with some rather disastrous consequences for some and somewhat happy outcome for others.
‘Ludo’ is a fun and entertaining ride from the very first scene that jolts into action. While it is impossible not to draw parallels between director Anurag Basu’s rather Quentin Tarantino-esque Hollywood style, there is enough in the script to keep the audience engaged till the climax.
The standout performance is by the supremely talented Tripathi, who plays the devious and sadistic don to perfection. Most of the other characters are adequate in their roles with the child actor, Inayat Verma, stealing show in a couple of frames as the precocious little Mini.
While ‘Ludo’ may not be setting any new rules for the cinematic game, this dark comic caper certainly offers a pretty joyful ride as a Diwali release from Netflix.
*‘iGlobal’ Review Series