Rann Movie Reviews

Rann is that rare cinema about the collective conscience which we often like to think has gone out of style. Like Mehboob Khan's Mother India and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Satyakam, Rann shows how tough it is to hold your head high up in dignified righteousness in a world where ethics crumble faster than cookies. Ironically, there isn't much sunshine in Rann. The film has been shot in an anaemic light, symbolizing a world that's largely losing light.

It's gritty. It's grey. And it's greatly topical too. Ram Gopal Varma returns to his let's-dissect-the-real-world brand of cinema with the racy-pacy Rann that might run on predictable lines, nevertheless it makes for a gripping viewing with its behind-the-scenes dekko on the Breaking News, any which way, syndrome that seems to have overtaken certain sections of the media. And, like Satya, Company and Sarkar, which re-visited India's

Think. Really hard. What are we all doing with the opportunities that life so generously provides us? In the mad mindless rush towards self-gratification, are we somewhere sacrificing those values that brought us, kicking dragging and sacrificing from a hard-earned freedom from colonialism to the new millennium where we, the collective civilization, are now poised at the brink of a moral disintegration?

One word. POWERFUL. Let's hear a round of applause for a man who has taken much of the brunt in the recent past. RGV manages to catch you by the collar and shake you out of your wits. RANN is a powerfully etched movie, enacted with purpose by every member of the cast. It begins with the click of a remote and ends with another. A creative way to use the much-abused device within the screenplay.

Ramgopal Varma is itching to tell a new story in his movies. You may garland him for his efforts or loathe him if you feel letdown, but you need to hand it to him for picking up stories that defy stereotype. This time, in RANN, the maverick film-maker does an expose on the games the heavyweights in the media play to further their interests. RGV goes into the newsrooms and also behind it and throws light on the politician-industrialist-media nexus.

Of the many films made on the media and its functioning, Rann will go down as one of the best ones. Ram Gopal Varma has brought to life a predictable but powerful script, backed by extremely talented actors and technicians. But the director has taken many cinematic liberties. Rann is serious from the beginning, so the first half is a bit of a drag, when the plot is being established. But post interval, the film is truly gripping. The story in the second half is about creating news, blackmailing, murder, media-politician nexus, and other pressures allegedly faced bythe media. It is about how Purab goes about exposing Jay Malik, Mohan Pandey and his aides. And it's about a father's choice.

Varma, who has been lately guilty of making fairly compromised films, rises above the morass of mediocrity with a meteoric force, letting other filmmakers know what he is capable of achieving if he sets his heart to it. "Rann" defines the role of the electronic media in today's context with remarkable virility and dramatic force. This is Varma's best work since "Company"

A LOST BATTLE: In Rann, director Ram Gopal Varma attempts to expose how the country’s electronic media is increasingly sacrificing journalistic ethics at the altar of sordid sensationalism, all in a cut-throat bid to stay ahead in the TRP game. But in an irony of sorts, the treatment of this relevant and sensitive subject is carried out in the same sensationalist — often over-the-top — manner that the maker of films like Company and Satya censures throughout the film. Overly dramatic and with a predilection for the hyperbolic, Rann is a film that promises too much and delivers too little.

The problem with Rann is that it doesn't strike a balance between what it shows - the ugly side of the news media - and some of the advantages of having a free press in a democracy. Everyone's either corrupt, or a Purab Shastri - fed up with the 'system' and willing to give up journalism because it has no place for honest people. You never watch a Ram Gopal Varma film to see a great story. You watch his films to see what he has done with those stories - what you call a 'treatment' director. Over the years, Varma has used, and abused, the same treatment in his films to such an extent that it has lost its novelty and fun factor now.

The point behind all this scrutiny is Rann, at last, promised to be something befitting from the filmmaker. And, well, it's not. What can you say about a film where the only thing in place is Amitabh Bachchan's perfectly knotted tie? It's like this. Stuffing falafel filling inside, a rava dosa might produce an exotic junk food fusion but confusing genre-styles in filmmaking can lead to utterly crappy results.

It is in the detailing that Rann suffers heavily. The spy cam story, upon which the entire film rests, is totally limp in its set up. Having personally been an integral part of Tehelka's spy cam story that revealed corruption in defence deals, I can vouch for the fakeness of Rann. Though most of the cast, especially Ritesh and Rajpal, put in a good effort, Rann never quite engages fully. Most dialogues and news room set-ups seem imaginary; the camerawork is too wobbly and the background score is highly grating. Thus, instead of a sharp well-nuanced expose with fresh insights, we get just another Rann of the mill Bollywood movie, suitably rehashed. Disappointing.

Rann has its moments, though they are few and far between. Bachchan's expressions and his eyes do a better job than the hackneyed lines he is meant to rote. He excels in the scene where his world comes tumbling down after realising his own kin has let him down.
You know it's an RGV film when you see an old matriarch, hear loud drum rolls for a background score, and notice weird camera angles mostly obsessed with closing up on frames.
Hardly an expose, or even fodder for healthy debate, Rann relises too hard on gimmicks to try and battle the rating charts.

Rann is director Ram Gopal Varma's expose of electronic media. The film looks at the corruption of television news. How the maddening race for TRPs forces news channels to compromise journalistic ethics, resort to sensationalism, and convert news into the worst kind of masala entertainment. These are urgent and relevant issues but Varma's film is the cinematic equivalent of the type of television he is castigating here. Raan is poorly written, badly researched, and deafeningly sensationalist.