‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ Movie Review

The con movie gets a desi twist with Yash Raj Film's latest

Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma in 'Ladies vs Ricky Bahl'

Cast: Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma, Parineeti Chopra, Dipannita Sharma Atwal and Aditi Sharma

Director: Maneesh Sharma

Produced by: Yash Raj Films

‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ opens in Delhi, quickly weaves in a peppy dance number with lots of Punjabi phrases, and soon has Ranveer Singh’s character pronouncing question as quechen (much like he pronounced biscuit as biskoot in ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’). We did feel a sense of déjà vu in the first 15 minutes of this new movie, which had its world premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival. Would elements from the hit that was Ranveer’s debut keep showing up in his latest? Well, ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ pretty much takes its own, unique direction after that, until it gets to the end, where the ‘Haven’t we seen his before?’ moment occurs again. Along the way though, it is mostly a fun journey.

We are first introduced to Ranveer as Sunny, the gym instructor boyfriend of Delhi rich girl Dimple Chaddha (a very impressive Parineeti Chopra). It’s no secret that our hero is a conman, and, in a scene, where he brings home a drunk and passed-out Dimple home to her parents, he demonstrates just how good he is at smooth-talking. We see it coming that Sunny will cheat Dimple and her dad (who, in turn, had been trying to cheat Sunny). What comes as a surprise is that the girl still loves him, despite knowing that all she was to him was another victim. Dimple hangs on to a picture she’s got of Sunny, not willing to share it with the police, but not sure what she wants to do with it either.

The next conman avatar served up is Deven Shah, who just happens to have an M F Husain painting handy just when Mumbai-based corporate hotshot Raina Parulekar (Dipannita Sharma Atwal) desperately wants it. Raina’s company is cheated out of Rs 60 lakhs, and she is accused by her boss of having been part of the con. Not one to take this lying down, she declares on national TV that she will find the man responsible, and clear her name.

Next, Dimple contacts Raina, and they’re also contacted by Lucknow based Saira Rashid (Aditi Sharma, who was so good in ‘Mausam’ and is just as effective playing a subdued character here). The episode of Saira’s conning is narrated in flashback, which lends a nice variation to the proceedings.

So the three ladies who’ve been conned decide to get back at the conman. Raina believes she knows just the girl to do the job. Enter Ishika Desai (Anushka Sharma), a fast-talking saleswoman.

The movie moves along fairly well even as Ishika puts the moves on Vikram Thapar (that’s our conman, now in Goa). She pretends to be a motel heiress, who wants to set up her own restaurant business in India to show her dad what she’s made of. She wants Vikram to invest in her project, and that’s the money the girls want to recover.

So far, so believable. What isn’t really well-explored is how Vikram and Ishika fall in love. ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ gives lots of focus to the ladies (Parineeti, Dipannita and Aditi) and they do full justice to their well-written roles. In comparison, Anushka’s part seems under-written, and, somehow, not as real as the others. She’s a good actress, of course. But that always dialed-up perkiness seems to pop up in every character she plays. That often makes her roles indistinguishable from one another.

That quibble aside, things get more interesting when the conman finds out that Ishika has been planted to con him. Ranveer is really good in the scenes after that discovery, and when he says later, towards the end, “I’m too good, na?”, we have to agree.

There’s no backstory to this conman, no family tragedy that made him turn to crime, he just seems to enjoy the thrill of outwitting someone. Why just women? No idea, and that’s how this story by Aditya Chopra wants to keep it. Whatever the reason, Ranveer makes the part his own.

We’d somehow been expecting a ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ kind of ending for ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’. What we get instead is something similar to ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’. It’s a good ending for the romantics, but if you’re a fan of the con, you will be disappointed.

Also, since this is a Yash Raj film, there are the usual YRF elements. Hot stars in sizzling scenes (Ranveer shows off his six-pack from a lot of angles and Anushka enters and emerges from a swimming pool in a black bikini); a reference to a movie from the production house (‘Tashan’ plays on a 52-inch TV); and a multiple salute to Shah Rukh Khan.

Overall though, ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ is a movie that’s worth watching. There’s a really good performance from Parineeti, and she also has the best lines in the movie (from her outburst at her dad about his double standards or her dismay at seeing that her ex-boyfriend is more ripped than ever). Habib Faisal’s dialogues, as always, have an inherent honesty about them. So whatever the characters say, it sounds real.

And ultimately, these are interesting characters who live in interesting times. Go watch ‘Ladies vs Ricky Bahl’ for them.