When Band Baaja Baraat released during the same time last year, no one really expected the film to do well. But what it did was transform Ranveer Singh into a star over-night, firmly established Anushka Sharma as one of the top heroines and turned director Maneesh Sharma into one of the most promising directors in Bollywood.

First attempts are always easier, mainly because they don’t carry any expectations. With Ladies vs Ricky Bahl, the same team returns, but with tremendous expectations. The task is to better Band Baaja Baraat. Anything less and we as the audience might return home disappointed.

Ladies vs Ricky Bahl suffers from exactly the same problem. It’s good and keeps you entertained throughout. Just that, it probably fails to match their previous effort. Comparisons are unfair when it’s not even a sequel. Hence, we went to watch this with a clear mind and our review will have no comparisons with Band Baaja Baraat.

Story: The film is about a con-man Ricky Bahl (Ranveer Singh) – who roams around in several disguises and has conned about 30 women. He doesn’t cheat them for sex nor does he do it for money – he does it purely because he loves charming women and conning them gives him some kind of satisfaction. Three such girls – Dimple, Saira and Raina – who were conned by him for Rs 1 crore, hatch a plan to take revenge and recover their money.

They hire Ishika Desai (Anushka Chopra), a smart sales-girl, and send her on a mission to con Ricky Bahl. How they do it, forms the rest of the tale.

Ladies vs Ricky Bahl Review

The film starts of well and like mentioned before, it remained entertaining throughout. There are portions in the second half where the story beings to stagnate a bit but director Maneesh Sharma proves yet again that he’s a good story-teller. The problem though, lies in the script. It tends to be predictable and certain sequences at times are a little hard to digest.

(possible spoilers ahead) Being as smart as he is portrayed to be, Ricky gets easily conned by Ishika. How did he suddenly turn stupid/blind? Also, for a man who has never really cared about anyone’s feelings, he suddenly falls in love with Anushka’s character. The whole falling-in-love sequence and her reciprocating, isn’t very convincing. (spoilers end here)

One other problem was the number of songs – Ladies vs Ricky Bahl has atleast two unnecessary songs, that considerably slowed down the pace.

Two performances stand out in the film. One, Ranveer Singh is his charming self and holds the entire film together. He’s there from start-to-finish and delivers an outstanding performance. He may not be one of the best looking actors, but his energy and screen-presence is incredible. And the second, Parineeti Chopra, who delivers a performance that was as sweet as Kareena Kapoor’s in Jab We Met! She looks pretty and her comic timing is brilliant. Looking forward to seeing more of her on the big-screen. Anushka Sharma was good, but only appears 45 minutes into the film. Dipannita Sharma and Aditi Sharma do well too.

Overall, Ladies vs Ricky Bahl is a fun one-time watch. Certainly better than many of the average films that go on to be blockbusters. At the box-office, the film was off to a slow start on Friday, but should pick up on word-of-mouth.

Rating: 3 and a half stars – Do watch it

Other notes: Meher Malik (the belly dancer of Just Dance) who was also one of Hrithik Roshan’s favorite dancers, makes a small appearance in one of the songs. It’s a blink and you’ll miss appearance, would have loved to see a little more of her.