Ladki (2022)
Movie Review:
Ram Gopal Varma is known to introduce new genres, themes, and heroines, and with Ladki he does exactly that. However, the way he has done it is nothing short of a cheap, B-grade action drama. RGV's Ladki is India's first martial arts film, but it has got more skin-show for adult movie lovers than what it offers for regular action lovers. It isn't anything like a modern film, nor does it match Ramu's outdated work. Ladki ends up being a wholesome waste of time, money, talent, and semi-nude fashion, oops, sorry, semi-nude action show.
Ladki is about a Pune girl, Pooja Karnik (Pooja Bhalekar), a die-hard fan of Bruce Lee. She lost her sister in the teenage years and has assimilated Lee's fighting art, Jeet Kune Do. She meets a young boy named Neel (Parth Suri), and, as expected, they both fall in love. As you can predict with blind eyes, it's a love triangle between the girl, her first love, Bruce Lee, and her boyfriend, Neel. She has to choose between Lee/her passion and Neel, which makes things difficult for her. The script is as old as Bruce Lee is for today's audience. Even Enter The Dragon had a much more advanced plot than this. Moreover, the cheesy and slummy screenplay tears it into parts.
Pooja Bhalekar is a professional taekwondo player, and the film gives her full exposure to showcase her skills from the first scene to the last frame. However, RGV's talent for skin exposure overtakes Pooja's martial arts skills, and she remains dull as an actress. But mind you, she looks smoking hot, sultry and damn sexy. Didn't you get the whole idea from the trailer and promos? Pooja may look hot and sexy, but the film wasn't supposed to be dependent on it. Rather, it should have kept itself within its limits. Okay, she has 70% of her scenes in bikinis and shorts, while the other 30% of the time, she is an attractive model. It's okay if she wears a bikini while training and that too on the beach, but she wears bikinis even in romantic songs that haven't got anything to do with her martial arts training. Why? And how come they both end up alone on the beach every time? For the sake of limits, she wears short jeans for a change (in very few scenes), but RGV doesn't forget to show the upper parts of her body. As a whole, it's a semi-nude fashion show like we used to watch on FTV in the 90s.
The supporting cast in the film is there only to pass on the scenes. They don't act, they don't give any expressions, nor do they even try to look good in front of the camera. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that even B-grade movie stars give better facial expressions and dialogue delivery than this. Parth Suri looks immature in his debut, while Rajpal Yadav gives one of the worst performances of his career. Abhimanyu Singh will remind you of a Bhojpuri film villain, and the Chinese actors somehow finish their dialogues. Gotto praise Miya Muqi for her action sequences, and no offense, but her milky-white skin diverts your sight.
Ram Gopal Varma once had a genre and filmmaking style of his own. People troll him for making AAG, but believe me, even that film is Sholay in front of Ladki. The action sequences in the film are worth your time, but you have to be an adult film lover to enjoy them. Most importantly, like RGV said, you have to be a man to enjoy watching a sexy girl display a stimulating skin show. Ladki has the feel of many unknown C-Grade films when it comes to technical aspects. The colour ratios, music, cinematography (except for action and steamy scenes), editing and art design are all downgraded. RGV makes sure that you have enough moments of blood heat and high temperature, no matter if the film succumbs to its terrible storytelling. As a whole, RGV's attempt to make India's first ever martial arts film has been murdered by his X-rated vision.
RATING - 2/10*
