Movie Review : Ladies vs Ricky Bahl

[amazon_link id=”B006P3E6RO” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Rating : 3.5/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2011
Running time : 2 hours 10 minutes
Director : Maneesh Sharma
Cast : Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma, Dippanita Sharma, Parineeti Chopra, Aditi Sharma
Kid rating : PG

Ricky Bahl is a small-time conman, switching appearances and jobs at will, and swindling his way across middle-class India. Sometimes he is an affable gym trainer, sometimes a hard-working cloth-merchant, and sometimes a poor bartender living in a barsaati. Women are taken in by this smooth-talker and much to their chagrin are relieved of their riches. Three such women – Saira Rashid of Lucknow, poor little rich girl Dimple Chaddha from Delhi and savvy businesswoman Raina Parulekar from Bangalore meet each other accidentally, and when they find out that they have been swindled by the same man, they resolve to pool resources and get even . . .

I really hadn’t expected much out of this film, but it turned out much better than hoped for. And by that I mean, quite entertaining really. It’s a light-hearted revenge drama, so someone is going to get his just deserts; when is watching that not fun ? This film has a reasonable-by-Bollywoodian-standards story, five winsome actors to light up the screen, and some fairly peppy music. Also great chemistry between Ranveer and Anushka (But then you already knew that, didn’t you ?)

Ranveer Singh quite suits this role, bringing his not-so-suave Delhi boy charm to each of the characters he plays. Anushka as the street-smart shop-girl Ishika Desai, the savior of the three damsels in distress, is her peppy self. Saira is played by tv actress Aditi Sharma – she of the annoying StarPlus “Tu hi tu” fame. Raina is leggy model Dipannita Sharma, and does quite well. The surprise package here is debutant Parineeti Chopra, who plays broken-hearted (yes she is in love with the cad) Punjaban Dimple from Delhi. Parineeti, who is Priyanka Chopra’s cousin displays the (family ?) flair for histrionics. She acts and dances with abandon, and while I wouldn’t have thought her perfect heroine material, is apparently quite set for Bollywood (see her recent release Ishaqzaade with Boney Kapoor’s son Arjun Kapoor).

This is an overall good film – not pretentious or perfect – just plain entertaining, and very much worth your time.

Kidwise : Fairly clean. Suitable for all kids.