Ludo is an anthology film created by Anurag Basu and distributed by Netflix. It showcases a series of characters playing out different storylines. First is Akash Chauhan (Aditya Roy Kapur) who finds out there is a sextape uploaded online of him and his ex-girlfriend Shruti Choksi (Sanya Malhotra) who is to be married in a few days. He wishes to find out the culprit who uploaded it and to remove it from the internet. Then comes Alok “Alu” Kumar Gupta (Rajkumar Rao), he has been in love with Pinky (Fatima Sana Shaikh) since they were children. Even after she is married to someone else Alu still can’t forget her and jumps to be a part of her life once again, when she comes hoping for his help. Next comes Bittu (Abhishekh Bachchan) originally a right-hand to a gangster, after falling in love lets go of that life style, but his past comes back biting and he is jailed for 6 years. Now after serving his sentence Bittu finds himself alone and without his wife & child, as she has moved on and married someone else. Finally come Rahul Awasthi (Rohit Suresh Saraf) & Sheeja Thomas (Pearle Maaney), both miserable in their personal lives meet out of luck and find themselves with a small fortune. But it won’t be an easy task keeping hold of it with the owner looking for it. Ultimately all these stories may seem unrelated but they have a common link of Rahul Satyendra “Sattu” Tripathi (Pankaj Triphati) a notorious local gangster who is directly or indirectly connected to all the characters.
Netflix with or without a good script are never shy to loosen their wallet to get a stellar cast for their project. This surely works in favour of the movie here with a lengthy cast having to drive the film with its loose script. Acting wise Rajkumar Rao as always showed his class portraying a peculiar character. Other actors too give a fairly good performance namely Abhishekh Bachchan, who has never really been appreciated for his work no matter what the role is. With the significance of his character Pankaj Tripathi also steadily portrays the character throughout the movie. Pritam’s music across the film is objectively placed slowing the extremely fast paced film. Lastly the story writing too needs to be admired keeping in mind the number of characters, plots and ultimately how they are intertwined when the story is told on screen.
Continuing on the story telling aspect, there is a partial narration in some scenes while there is a complete omission of scenes in some. Anurag Basu himself playing the narrator, should have realised to keep a uniformity in the story telling or in all honesty kept the narrative style out of it completely as did not add anything to the story. On the face of it the film has only 4 major stories but in reality there are way too many sub-stories and characters. It is still more even if compare other anthology movies. This may not be well received by all viewers as it gets quite chaotic keeping a track of all characters & stories. The pace of the movie is excruciatingly fast, which too comes down due to the number of plots, but not many would realise it or be bothered by it.
The anthology genre is surely an acquired taste be it a movie or a show. Not everyone enjoys them. But if you do Ludo will certainly be a good watch. If you haven’t seen any anthology works this can be a good starter. Nevertheless it will be an enjoyable watch for everyone. There have rarely been any productions of the genre in the Indian landscape, and good ones are even fewer, so Netflix’s effort should be appreciated about that.
Acting- 8
Casting- 9
Cinematography- 7
Dialogue- 7.5
Directing- 7.5
Editing & Effects- 7
Sound & Music- 8.5
Story- 8.5
Storytelling- 8
Rating- 8
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