I was pretty excited to see Ludo. I loved the cast and Anurag Basu is a director that puts up interesting and experimental films like Barfi! and Jagga Jasoos that other Hindi film directors don't do.

Ludo, like the board game, shows four different storylines and how they all connect by fate.

To be perfectly honest, I feel quite mixed on it. There are certain aspects that I appreciate and other choices that frankly annoyed me. It's very rare to see a director do the cinematography for their own film. The only other time I've seen that happen is with Roma directed by Alfonso Cuarón and I liked what Basu did with it. The use of the four colours in the board game: red, blue, yellow and green are present in the film in many places whether it's to do with costumes, vehicles, lighting or buildings. It made the film look really good and suits the film's title really well. For a black comedy, the dialogues are decent. Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Tripathi get the best ones and there are quite a few laughs from them.

The entire cast do a great job. It's great to see Abhishek Bachchan in a film after a long time. I always considered him to be underrated and he does a great job. He gives a restrained performance and so a lot of emotions come from his eyes which conveys the pain he goes through really well. Pankaj Tripathi is very fun to watch and is great as usual. Aditya Roy Kapur and Sanya Malhotra are great together. Rohit Saraf and Pearle Manney are pretty good as well. Fatima Sana Shaikh and Rajkummar Rao are excellent. I liked the relationship they had with another and is one of the highlights of the film.

There were a couple of narrative choices which bugged me during my viewing. Anurag Basu is in the film and serves as the narrator who discusses the film's themes and character traits. It's this choice that really brought down the film for me. I wish he would've let us figure out what the overall meaning and purpose of the film is rather than holding our hand and blatantly telling us. The background score also tells us how to feel during a scene. If something funny is happening, comedic music starts to play which shouldn't be the case as the comedy should speak for itself. The film is also pretty long and I feel it could have been cut down. I don't think the abundance of songs added much and the pacing during the second act could have tighter. There are a couple of special effects used which aren't polished at all.

Ludo is a yet another interesting film by Anurag Basu but it has problems that really brought down the film for me. A lot of people seem to like Ludo and you can see it on Netflix if you want. I would recommend seeing Amores Perros and Super Deluxe if you haven't already. I think these films do a better job at this genre.