In this age of movies releasing on OTT platforms, very few have managed to intrigue me in the recent past as much as the latest Netflix original, Ludo.
Ludo starts off with a catchy opening track (yesteryear legend Bhagwan Dada's famous song), an appealing start and a quirky narrative. The criss-crossing between characters (which is the highlight of this anthology) is observed by a pair of commentators, including the director, Anurag Basu (his second anthology after the 2007 film, Life in a Metro). However, as the multiple characters get introduced one by one with each storyline randomly running back and forth aimlessly, you begin to wonder what is actually going on? This is one of the biggest drawbacks of the movie.
The ensemble cast deliver some credible performances - Pankaj Tripathi at his usual "gangster-best" apart, Abhishek Bachchan, Shalini Vatsa (as Nurse Lata Kutty) and Pearle Maaney (as Nurse Shreeja) really stand out. Rajkummar Rao's Mithun fan avatar is fun while Fatima Sana Shaikh as the sometimes docile, sometimes trigger-happy woman-scorned is a revelation.
In the end (and quite often in the middle too), the movie tries to get too preachy - saying everyone's version of "good" and "bad" is subjective by ruminating on the concept of "sin and virtue", the importance of second chances and the unpredictable nature of life itself!
But somehow, the individual tiles do not lead to that all-elusive "home" and sadly that's where this game of Ludo is lost!
