Rann Movie Review

Ram Gopal Varma and Amitabh Bachan are back!! After the horrendous Nishabd and the horrifying “Aag”, this was perhaps the last duo that anyone wanted back. However, proving their mettle once again, Rann comes with the Sarkar flavour and the punch packed monologue speciality of Mr.Bachan.

While there have been a spate of movies on “Media – the evil”, this movie stands its own through its refreshingly honest portrayal of how media works and how situations create evil and not necessarily the other way around. RGV has captured the essence of the newsrooms, behind the scenes non-glamour and the media rat race pressure. Mr. Bachan has given a worthy performance, as the honest upright news person, the broken bewildered father and the evangelist of news ethics. However, it is Jai Mallik who steals the thunder. As the idolizing son who is churned out by the dirty politics of news business, he has carried with dignity his character through negative shades. A circumstantial victim who turned weak at crucial junctures, managed to still convey that after all he was just human. Riteish Deshmukh, as a serious sincere actor, whose glimpse we had all had in Naach, has again been extracted by RGV. Paresh Rawal, the dirty politician is no surprise and neither is Rajat Kapoor the manipulative businessman. However, the typical RGV touch is well evident in the scene where Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal) seeks blessings from his ailing mother by placing her hand on his head, before he does so he wipes the dust off his mother’s hand and then afterwards from the top of his head where he had placed his mother’s hand. The simple scene highlights the hypocrisy of the character to the hilt.

The story starts with Harshvardhan Malik (Amitabh Bachan) who is head of news channel 24/7 and is reputed as the most ethical newsperson in the industry. However, ethics don’t run a business, money does! Jai Malik, the dutiful son, returns from abroad to take over the reins of business from aging father and discovers to his frustration that their channel is going down in terms of ad revenue and TRP. Trying to walk the fine line between accommodating the father’s principles and running a profitable business, he falls prey to the manipulations of his brother in law, leading businessman Naveen Shankalya (Rajat Kapoor) and the prime ministerial candidate Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal). The underhanded tactics and espionage employed by competition Headline channel is aptly acted out by Suchitra Krishnamoorthy and Mohnish Behl. Meanwhile, the beacon of hope, an upcoming idealistic reporter Purab Shastri (Riteish Deshmukh) who with his bloodhound instincts, begins to unravel the mystery of how things went wrong and why? The movie then ensues with how Mr. Bachan responds to the challenge of the situation, whether his principles are idealistic or not?

An enjoyable movie with a message and a predictable ending.