Review: Ludo

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At the start while reviewing Ludo; mandatory disclosure; Catch and Snatch kind of movies usually have a max viewing time of 90 minutes and anything above that it starts to get a tad iffy and "lost" even. And that is where the problem of Ludo run time is and  they could have done away with the middle 30-40  minutes of the film. Those were times when the film actually lost the plot and meandered into finding answers to every plot lines it had introduced. A film that starts well with a modern day Chitragupt and Yama (Anurag Basu looking impressive) looking for answers to life and gradually builds the plot of four different tracks (A la blue, red, yellow and green ludo dots) and each one with a back story that typically collides at different times of life and moments. There is an Abhishek Bachchan plot, a Rajkumar Rao plot, an Aditya Roy Kapur plot and finally the impressive Rahul Saraf plot. The plots all converge to Sattu Bhaiyya (Pankaj Tripathi) in some way or the other meaning a metaphorical "Home" of the game Ludo.

What works for Ludo; the star cast. Its an ensemble cast so large as this; credit to Anurag for holding so many of them together. The plot line of Aditya Kapur and Sanya Malhotra works well in parts but the others seemed more like a work in progress. Rajkumar had a role so created for him and yet there seemed a sense of fallow in his performance. For a guy with such amazing comedy timing in Stree; pity we could not find that spark somewhere but the honesty in the performance cannot be questioned. Abhishek Bachchan does well in a Yuva kind of character with a criminal past and trying to make do in the present. The supporting cast had some old and new faces and they all seemed to provide the right pivot. Yet, the length of the film seemed always an aberration. A genre so well mastered by Guy Ritchie and some of his classics like Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. 

Yet, it must be given to Anurag's credit the central plot built around the theme of a game (Ludo) works well in parts. With no big names to boot and a set of relatively known and unknown faces it gives a freshness to the scenes. The comedic timing of Pankaj Tripathi sets the tone with some great support from Pearl Maane, Ishtiyak Khan and the talented Rajkumar Rao. 

Ludo is clean in plot lines and structures with some great editing and background score. A good 30 minutes off from the film would have made a great "see" in an depressing time such as Now. It airs on Netflix. Go Watch.     

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