Ladies vs Ricky Bahl

Ladies vs Ricky Bahl

Language: Hindi
Critic Rating:  (3.0/5)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Release Year: 2011
Cast: Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma, Parineeti Chopra, Aditi Sharma, Dipannita Sharma 
Producer: Aditya Chopra 
Director: Maneesh Sharma 
Music Director: Salim Merchant,Sulaiman Merchant 





Don’t we love Anushka Sharma for her sass and sensuality, for how she turns from an adorable Aphrodite to a bindaas belle in a mere wink? Don’t we just gawk with admiration when she dances with abandon, as if it’s her last dance and she must milk out all her Jazba into every move she makes? And don’t we get brainwashed of all the talk about her skeletal frame when she peels off to flaunt a body tailormade for bikini (not vice versa). I, at times, do, and so went to watch Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl all game to be happily clean bowled by Anushka again. But I was stumped by another girl.


Parineeti Chopra. This hitherto anonymous girl with ordinary features and no acting background emerges from the marketing wing of the YRF and takes to acting like she was born and bred for it. Playing a feisty Delhi girl, Parineeti is impudent, crass, bluff, and all moony over her man, a con he may be. Though her role isn’t chunky, she leaves you wanting to hear more of those funny lines (finely penned by Habib Faisal) that only she, with her natural flair and Punju accent, could have mouthed. 


In a film populated by four ladies, it’s hard for a man to hold his stead, but Ranveer Singh just about manages that with a subdued charm, boyish smile, washboard abs and some talent too. He plays Ricky Bahl, a conman who exclusively targets girls. Assuming varied guises like that of a clothes merchant, gym instructor or art dealer, he woos the ladies, wins their trust, and when the iron is hot, bang and poof! he’s gone with their lakhs safely stuffed in his briefcase.


Among his pretty victims is the gullible Dimple (Parineeti Chopra) from Delhi, a shy and reserved Saira (Aditi Sharma) from Lucknow and a suave executive Raina (Dipannita Sharma) from Mumbai. The three ladies gang up to give the slicker a taste of his own medicine and hire a smart, clever salesgirl Ishika (Anushka Sharma) to trap the Bloody Kameena (as they call Ricky Bahl) and beat him at his own game. Will the swindler bite the bait and be hoist by his own petard? Or will he pull a fast one on the ladies again when they least suspect?


For one, the film has an interesting plot and director Maneesh Sharma doesn’t let your interest wane for the first half. Ricky Bahl’s exploits with the three ladies aren’t cerebral, but they make for a fun watch. The trouble starts in the second half, when Anushka and Ranveer are made to loiter around Goa more than a taut script should have offered, and the pace slackens thereon. It’s also hard to stomach the fact that a clever conman like Ricky Bahl could so easily be made to shell out lakhs with nothing much to offer for his confidence than a website of a business empire whose heiress he hopes to ensnare. And it’s a droll but unconvincing sight to see the ladies buying ersatz goodies from roadside stalls at bargain-basement prices and pasting them with the labels of high-end brands like a Gucci or Fendi while Ricky Bahl happily foots the bill. Also Anushka Sharma’s role ought to have more meat. Just when one expects her to outfox Ricky Bahl, she’s a weak, lovestruck girl, a mere shadow of her former self.


But credit to the ladies for putting up good performances. Anushka and Parineeti steal the show, while Aditi Sharma and Dipannita Sharma chip in well for their part. Aditi makes for a believable picture of a bashful small-town girl, while Dipannita is her diametric opposite: a city-bread, tough taskmaster and a go-getter. 


The music by Salim-Sulaiman is plain ordinary but the cinematographer Aseem Mishra shows an eye for the detail. Director Maneesh Sharma bookends the story well but lets it go limp in the middle. And sometimes that’s where things matter the most.


All in all, Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl is a fun one-time watch. Just don’t go expecting the moon, and you’ll come out smiling.


Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5

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The Dirty Picture

The Dirty Picture

Language: Hindi
Critic Rating:  (3.5/5)
Genre: Drama, Musicals
Release Year: 2011
Cast: Vidya Balan, Emran Hashmi, Tushar Kapoor, Naseerudin Shah, Anju Mahendroo 
Producer: Ekta Kapoor,Shobha Kapoor 
Director: Milan Lutharia 
Music Director: Vishal Dadlani,Shekhar Ravjiani 





Sex and substance rarely go together. The former unfailingly dominates the latter. So it’s a given that when a woman plunges herself headlong into an unabashed display of her femininity and pulls down her necklines to the eye-popping glances of deprived souls (not few in number by any count), one isn’t interested in looking beyond. What for? 


Vidya Balan flips this seemingly cardinal rule on its head. By dint of her unalloyed talent, she makes you look up from that ‘Grand Canyon’ cleavage and pneumatic orbs, and into those eyes that speak tons in silence. Into those quivering lips, those bleary eyebags, at that lofty brow and pursed forehead and thereby into the insides of the tormented character she plays. In these rare moments of brilliance, she provides a sliver of substance behind sex. It’s like watching a kamasutra pose and being hit by a flash of light inside your head that makes you look beyond those coiled bodies and at the aesthetic beauty and the greater union beyond. To be able to do that in a Bollywood film is no mean feat. And Vidya Balan pulls it off with flying colours. In short, she makes the dirty SUBLIME.


She plays the unapologetic, fiercely ambitious siren with few scruples and a troubled past. Her character Silk ploughs her way through the dirty world of showbiz, on the way willingly succumbing to the lust of a superstar (Naseeruddin Shah), to the affection of an admirer (Tusshar Kapoor) and the hatred of an arthouse film director (Emraan Hashmi). And out of it all she emerges scarred and sexploited, a woman drowning her loneliness with alcohol, puffing off her failure with cigarettes, and finding love a little too late.


Though it’s a story with lots of skin, there’s sorrow at its heart. The dazzle of Silk’s rise to fame is offset by her spiraling decline as her life fall apart, piece by piece.


Director Milan Luthria and writer Rajat Aroraa have come up with a finely crafted film, but how one wishes they had put a leash on the dialoguebaazi. The characters speak in the language of Salim-Javed dialogues, often spinning out innocuous metaphors about things as mundane as a cigarette pack or a car-gear lever. Even the song where Silk and new siren Shakila compete could have been edited short.


These foibles apart, The Dirty Picture has its share of gripping moments. For instance, the night of subdued intimacy between Vidya and Emraan, or the sequence where Silk dances publicly on a car bonnet to spoil the party of a critic, or Silk’s incisive award-acceptance speech.


The performances by the male cast are spot on. If Naseer is every bit the cocky, smug, vain superstar, Tusshar is the bashful younger brother with a soft spot for Silk. Emraan plays a somewhat complex character of a man who doesn’t know if he loves to hate Silk, or hates to love her.


But taking the cake is the lady herself -- Vidya Boombat Balan. The character of Silk might have turned into an image of vulgarity if played by a lesser actor. Of course, there’s nothing great in stripping. Even Poonam Pandey does that. But it takes Vidya Balan to stir your thoughts, not just testosterone.


Go watch The Dirty Picture for Vidya Balan. 


Rating: 3 stars out of 5

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