Movie Review: Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl

By Jyotsna Kumar

When Bollywood is flooded with sequels, wonder why Maneesh Sharma didn't opt for Band Baja sequel? He rather came out with the identical version of his debut venture called Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl.

Ricky aka Sunny aka Vikram aka Iqbal aka Deven (Ranveer Singh) is a con man. Through his charm, he has a way through ladies. In 15 years of his 'con-man career' he duped almost 30 ladies, robbed them, but failed his heart to the 31^st one – Ishika Desai (Anushka Sharma). Will he follow his heart this time or do his business he's best known for? Is what Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl is all about.

When I say the film has a reminiscence of Band Baja Baraat, it's because the way the main protagonists are conceived. Both Ricky and Ishika's conviction to offer the best deal to their clients, their zeal, hard work, even dialect is very similar to their previous caricature as Bittoo Sharma and Shruti Kakad in Band Baja.

Interestingly, other characters in the film shine out. Parineeti Chopra (Priyanka Chopra's cousin and once Yash Raj marketing and PR consultant) with her cute, nonchalant west Delhiite gave tough competition to Anushka on-screen. She carried immense confidence in her.  It didn't look like it was her debut film.

Dipannita Sharma looked old but good in her non-glam avatar. However, she desperately tried to look glamorous. Aditi Sharma was nothing close to her fabulous performance in Mausam.

Though it's not right to compare a director's latest film with his last one, as both has its individual soul, entity, and treatment all together. But with Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl the director left no choice. At multiple stances you'll encounter Band Baja Baraat, specially the partnership deal and dialogues like Ek garage se business shuru kiya tha aapne, aaj itna badaa empire hai. Koi galat kaam nahi karunga. The only difference is that Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl is not half as entertaining as Band Baja was.

In an era where novel filmmakers are investing so much on characters (JJ in Rockstar, Silk in The Dirty Picture, Gurubhai in Guru) it's a shame that with LVRB Maneesh chose to invest only in clothes and actor's picture perfect profiles. The film has so many loopholes that it shows how unprepared the script was. It appears that with LVRB, Maneesh conviction was totally lost. Hope he strikes back.

For the audience, my honest suggestion is don't waste your money. Wait for a month, let Ladies V/s Ricky Bahl hit the idiot box. Catch it there!

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