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Rann Review

Review by IndiaGlitz [ Friday, January 29, 2010 • Hindi ]
Rann Review
Cast:
Amitabh Bachchan, Ritesh Deshmukh, Paresh Rawal, Mohnish Behl, Manisha Koirala, Rajat Kapoor, Gul Panag, Raima Sen, Rajpal Yadav
Direction:
Ram Gopal Varma
Music:
Dharmaraj Bhatt, Sandeep Patil, Jayesh Gandhi, Bapi-Tutul, Sanjeev Kohli, Imran-Vikram, Amar Mohile

What is it all about?

Amitabh Bachchan, this man has done it before and again he does it with tremendous ease. By his sheer simplicity of getting into the skin of the character makes an average film worth watching.

If you believe that in this era, one channel can force a PM to resign on criminal charges, which never gets investigated. If you believe that a channel can make an opposition leader the next P.M.

If you believe that the oath taking ceremony of India's PM can be halted because one respected honest journalist is making some exposure in his studio.

Then you can hail RGV's `Rann' as a thought provoking, stark and sensible cinema, otherwise it's a juvenile view of the complexity, hunger, myth of journalism based on the principle `To speak the truth without fear or favour' which is loosing its credibility and colour by every sensationalism and scripted news items day  by day. The prolific RGV who told us nothing but the truth in `Satya' and continued to rule with `Sarkar' fails to apprehend the true enormity of media blunders which we see everyday and can't list them and forget very easily. But wonders like Jessica Lall trial or the current Shruti or even the thelka expose still remains in our minds. Rather the movie is a simple average neta media story on the surface of a T.V. channel where it doesn't give the material or the audience much.

New Delhi Times, Surkhiya, Page 3, even SRK's ` Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani' have tried to show us the insight of media some dared to bring the truth somewhat while others didn't. Sadly, RGV's `Rann' comes with lack of evidences and sources that make you feel that you are watching a contrived social drama.

The Story..Of Course

One can easily imagine the drama as the writing lacks insights and details where Vijay Harshvardhan Malik (Amitabh Bachchan) is the founder of a private news channel, India 24/7. A hardcore upholder of journalistic ethics, his channel is battling for survival. Jay (Sudeep), his son, looks at his father's news channel purely as a business enterprise that must make profits to justify its existence. He hates that his competition (Mohnish Bahl) is doing better than him. The story takes a turn when a corrupt politician, Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal), decides to use the channel to his advantage by using Vijay's son-in-law Navin (Rajat Kapoor). Pandey aspires to be the Prime Minister and indulges in a vicious campaign against his political opponent.

Navin is the most insecure man on earth and won't rest till he becomes the number one industrialist in the country. He, in turn, involves his brother-in-law Jay in Pandey's game plan.

What to look out for?

The movie is shrewdly made and is surrounded by some excellent performances.

Big B as the distinguished newsman who is a staunch believer of honesty gives a performance that makes this average fair watch able for the man's sincere efforts.

The 5 minutes speech during the end moments of the film clearly showed the aghast, pain and sadness of the man who believes in honesty thwarting and refusing all the demands is now helpless as he finds his son on the receiving end. Big B's pause and expressions are just brilliant and forces you to feel for the character where ironically the movie doesn't.

Ritesh spunk's a surprise by enacting a serious role breaking his mould from those mindless clowny acts. Sudeep is fantastic and spontaneous. Paresh Rawal does the villainy with sincerity. Rajat Kapoor is earnest. Mohnish Bhel once again proves. The ladies didn't have much to do but still Suchitra Krishnamurthy gets more scope and shines. The movies intriguing moments apart from Big B's speech are given by Rajpal Yadav who is repetitive but is still enjoyable.

Technical aspects are strong; the movie is well shot by Amit Roy where Nipun Gupta's scissor work makes it look sharp and the background score by Debasish Mishra makes an attempt to set our mood.

What's not?

Apart from the blunders mentioned at the start, the movie lacks details and takes too much liberties like Ritesh Deshmukh an entrant is immensely lucky to be a part of the channel's board meeting where TRP's and other important decision are being taken, he even voices his opinion and goes for exclusive interviews?.

Later on, he acquires the top position of the channel because he was the man behind the expose and what on earth makes the strong principal holder like Amitabh quit the job as a media man, he should have continued and set an example.

Big B's speech should have ended the film on that inspiring thinking note but the call for the push and pull of commercial and sensible cinema makes RGV to end on a melodramatic and filmy note making Sudeep who plays Big B's son commit suicide and a new entrant Purab Shastri getting the top position in the channel.

Where and when do we see the pathos of crusading reporters who selflessly put their principles above all? At least in the film it could have been shown.

And how on earth can a person decide the venue for his oath taking ceremony as a PM of India away from Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Recommended: `Rann' is like listening to the just an average debater in middle school presenting a term paper called "Politics, Power and the Media.", this dumping down on the insights which we need to know and `covering' it with a routine Bollywood drama of politicia and the media is for those cinegoers whose look for drama and melodrama and not the truth.

Rating: **

[*- Yuck,  **- Oh No. *** Hmm, Well done. **** - Bravo, superb, *****- priceless]

 

 

Rating: 0 / 5.0

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