Ladies vs Ricky Bahl

Ladies vs Ricky Bahl
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Maneesh Sharma
Produced by	Aditya Chopra
Written by	Habib Faisal (Dialogue & Additional Screenplay)
Screenplay by	Devika Bhagat
Story by	Aditya Chopra
Starring	Ranveer Singh Anushka Sharma Parineeti Chopra Dipannita Sharma Aditi Sharma
Music by	Salim-Sulaiman
Cinematography	Aseem Mishra Ravi K. Chandran
Edited by	Namrata Rao[1]
Distributed by	Yash Raj Films
Release dates	9 December 2011 (2011-12-09)
Running time	140 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹200 million (US$3.0 million)[2]
Box office	₹370 million (US$5.5 million) (as per 2012)

Ladies vs Ricky Bahl is a 2011 Indian romantic comedy film directed by Maneesh Sharma and produced by Aditya Chopra. It stars Ranveer Singh opposite Anushka Sharma in lead roles along with Dipannita Sharma, Aditi Sharma and debutant Parineeti Chopra. Ranveer plays a conman named Ricky Bahl who cons women until three of these women unite to con him back. The story was loosely inspired by Jeffrey Archer's novel Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less and American comedy John Tucker Must Die. It was released on 9 December 2011. It got mixed to positive response from critics and was an average at the box office.^[3]

Plot

Dimple Chaddha (Parineeti Chopra) is a spoilt brat and only daughter of Sandeep Chaddha, the creator of "Chaddha Industries", a huge property company in Delhi. Her boyfriend is Sunny Singh (Ranveer Singh), a fitness instructor at a local gym. While travelling with Dimple on his bike, he stops at an old bungalow and proceeds to break in to harass the residents. Sunny tells a confused Dimple that the bungalow he vandalised belongs to his family and it had been illegally encroached upon by the tenants. His grandfather, father and mother have all died recently due to the stress of fighting the court case to remove tenants. The government however as ruled in favour of the tenants and he has to pay thousands in property tax to avoid being arrested.

Dimple convinces her father, Mr. Chaddha (Shireesh Sharma) to help Sunny get his ancestral property back, to which he agrees as the bungalow is on a sought after road. He sends his goons to forcibly evict the tenants. After this, Mr. Chaddha convinces Sunny to sell him the property for much less than market value. Later, Mr. Chaddha is arrested for evicting the tenants as unbeknownst to Mr. Chaddha, the family living there had a stay order due to a family dispute in the court for years on ownership. However, this dispute did not involve a "Sunny Singh". Dimple becomes heartbroken on knowing she's been conned and tries to find Sunny, who has already made his escape by boarding a flight to Mumbai. Sunny Singh in reality is only one of the fake identities of a serial con-artist named Ricky Bahl (Ranveer Singh).

In Mumbai, Ricky re-emerges working as a cleaner at an office building where he spies on Raina Parulekar (Dipannita Sharma), a headstrong go-getter businesswoman in a large PR firm called Synergy Communications. She's been ordered by her boss to obtain a rare M.F. Hussain painting. Ricky later meets Raina where he, pretending to be an art aficionado named "Deven Shah", tells her that he has been loaned the painting she needs by reputed businessmen, the Suri brothers, for an art exhibition. Raina, desperate to deliver on her promise, makes a deal with one of the Suri brothers, Manoj(who is actually Ricky, using a voice encryption software) over the phone. She agrees to buy the painting for Rs. 12 million. He tells Raina to give half the amount as an advance to Deven, as well as a cheque for Deven's commission. At a grand party hosted by Synergy, the painting is unveiled but the real Manoj Suri contacts Raina's boss and reprimands him over the phone saying that he never sold the painting so this one must be a fake. At this her boss says "how will we justify such a big scam?". As if, for such a huge company who can spend 60 lacs on a painting, it's a scam that someone sold them a duplicate painting and also all the press came to interview her! Raina's boss berates Raina for her ignorant mistake, accusing her of trying to con the company for Rs. 6 million. Humiliated, Raina tells the TV news that she was duped by Deven Shah. Dimple sees the news on TV and suspects that Deven Shah could be her "Sunny". She contacts Raina, who instantly recognises that Sunny Singh is indeed Deven Shah. Simultaneously, Raina receives another call from Lucknow from a widow named Saira Rashid (Aditi Sharma), who explains her story of having been conned by a man named Iqbal Khan, another alias of Ricky's.

Raina asks Dimple and Saira to come to Mumbai so that they can make a plan to find and con their common conman, who they simply name "Bloody Kameena (BK)" (Bloody Scoundrel). They decide to play the same con on him as he's done to them by baiting him with a too good to be true business offer. The plan is the following: Ishika (Anushka Sharma), a smart, sweet-talking and cunning saleswoman, would act as the daughter of an NRI American business tycoon, who wishes to open a restaurant in India to prove to her father that she has business acumen. Ishika is to con BK into investing in the fake restaurant by offering him a partnership proposal. To find BK, Raina uses the help of one of her hacker friends, who gives them a list of all prepaid numbers from around India which have the same unique "caller tune" (the famous dialogue by Shah Rukh Khan from Baazigar) also used by BK. Using this they manage to find him in Goa, where he goes by the alias of "Diego Vaz".

Ricky, apparently unaware of the trap set for him, slowly starts falling for it. However, in the process of conning Ricky, Ishika falls in love with him, knowing well that Ricky, in turn, has also fallen in love with her. Ishika is tormented as she feels pulled between her promise towards the three girls and her feelings for Ricky. Ishika is conflicted about conning him as she realizes she has feelings for him, but assures the three girls that she is still on their side. Ricky overhears the four girls loudly arguing about him and he realizes that he has been set up. He is heartbroken and finally realises the pain he gave to everyone when he conned them. However Ricky remains firm and wanting vengeance he makes a plan to con the four girls. Ricky confesses to Ishika; he tells her he is a conman and wants to leave this life behind and that he wants to marry her. Ishika tells the girls about this latest development and Raina reminds them that he is a conman after all, and that this is likely his biggest con yet. Saira then develops a plan to use Ricky's proposal to the girls' advantage. The girls set up a fake "father" (Akshay Anand) of Ishika, who orders Ricky to buy a plot in the name of Ishika, so she can be safe in case Ricky absconds. Ricky agrees, but since he does not have enough cash, he asks Ishika to lend him Rs. 4.5 million, half of the plot's worth. The deal is made and all the property papers are transferred to Ishika but they soon realise that this was all a con by Ricky. He bought the worthless "swamp" plot for Rs. 300,000 under a fake alias, then asked the agent to sell that same land to Ishika for Rs. 9 million. That way, the money which Ishika had conned out of Ricky would come back to him. The three girls blame Ishika for cheating them and vent their anger out on her. Ishika leaves and returns to Mumbai. The three return to pack up and leave, only to find Ricky sitting in their garden. He explains why he came back that he didn't feel good about conning the girl he truly loved and that the four girls have changed him into now becoming an honest and decent man. He returns the combined money he stole from them of Rs. 10 million and leaves.

The three girls realise Ricky's and Ishika's love for each other and reunite them. He travels to Mumbai and meets Ishika and proposes to her. She accepts and they both kiss each other and then he tells her his real name, Ricky Bahl.

Cast

• Ranveer Singh as Sunny Singh / Deven 'Idiot' Shah / Iqbal Khan / Vikram Thapar / Diego Vaz / Ricky Bahl
• Anushka Sharma as Ishika Desai/ Ishika Patel
• Parineeti Chopra as Dimple Chaddha
• Dipannita Sharma as Raina Parulekar
• Aditi Sharma as Saira Rashid
• Shireesh Sharma as Mr. Chaddha, Dimple's father
• Avijit Dutt as Raina's boss
• Akshay Anand as Raina's colleague
• Sheena Bajaj as Nurse

Equipment

Aseem Mishra and Ravi K Chandran have used as zoom lens an Angenieux Optimo.^[4]

Reception

Release

The film was released in India on 9 December 2011. Upon release, it received mixed response from critics. Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra's cousin, Parineeti Chopra, made her acting debut in the film and most critics have praised her highly for her acting skills. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama gave 3 out of 5 stars and said: "Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl is, at best, a decent fare, which appeals in parts. The film starts well, even ends well. It's the in between that's plain ordinary. Ideally, the film merits a two-and-a-half star rating, but that extra half star is for Ranveer and Anushka, who steal your heart with truly striking performances.^[5] Nikhat Kazmi from The Times of India gave 2.5 of 5 stars adding: "There is no humour, no earthy flavour, no tingling chemistry between the lead pair. What does work in favour of the film are its performances and its non-hysterical tenor."^[6] Komal Nahta from Koimoi gave it a 3-star as well stating: Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl is a fair entertainer. What is good about it is: The basic plotline; some con-game sequences; performances; music NDTV gave the film 3.5 stars from 5, calling it predictable and adding that the loses out on the great chemistry between the two leads. But it is still great to watch. However, he praised the performance of Ranveer Singh.^[7] So did Rajeev Masand who, in his review for IBN Live, described it as watchable but thought that it could've been so much more fun.^[8] Zee News gave it 3/5 stars, stating that "A good option to get entertained this weekend and reconnect with the BBB jodi for some laughter and foot stomping again! go watch Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl."

Unlike their last success, Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma, despite receiving good reviews from critics. Parineeti Chopra, the only one to get appreciation of the whole cast, received accolades for her bubbly performance.

Box office

Ladies vs Ricky Bahl had a biggest first day with many places recording high first day collections, but some multiplexes recording 90–100% for the first day. The collection improved well in Delhi and Punjab area throughout the day. The multiplex-dominated areas saw good to decent occupancy while single-screened areas remain on lower side. The film had a decent first day collections of ₹ 112.5 million.^[9][10] During the second day of release, it showed good improvement and collected ₹ 225 million. Collections rose once again on Sunday and it collected a whopping sum of ₹ 247.5 million which brings the 3-day total to ₹ 305 million approx.^[11] The film remained steady on Monday, with collections around ₹ 315 million nett, taking the four-day total to  million nett approx.^[12] The film also put up a decent first week collection, grossing ₹ 230 million nett.^[13][14] Overall, it did decent business at the box office and earned ₹ 370 million in full theatrical run and declared average at the box office.^[15]

Awards

Soundtrack

The song "Jigar Da Tukda" won the most atrocious lyrics award at the Golden Kela Awards in 2012. ^[17]

Track listing

References

External links

• Official Website
• Ladies vs Ricky Bahl at the Internet Movie Database