Rann: A review

Before you make up your mind about Rann, it’s important to understand what this film is and what it isn’t. If you were to oversimplify it and put it, the way Ramgopal Verma does throughout Rann– its noble and it’s ambitious.  What it isn’t is anything watchable or worthwhile. 

Vijay Harshwardan Malik (Amitabh Bachchan) is a veteran journalist and the head of News 24 x 7 – a news channel that is struggling to survive in a morally deficient sensationalist market; rapidly losing ground and TRPs to his erstwhile protégé Amrish’s (Mohnish Behl) channel, which in contrast, is thriving on infotainment and paid news.  

In comes the twist in the tale, when the prodigal son and heir apparent, Jai (Sudeep) in a bid to save his channel, is lured by his avaricious brother-in-law Naveen (Rajat Kapoor) into a industrialist-politician nexus, when he sells his soul and with it, his channel’s integrity to the greasy politician Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal) by agreeing to ‘create’ news; staging a sleazy sting operation incriminating the PM in a communal riot that ends up toppling the ruling regime and leading Pandey to the seat of power. 

Meanwhile, intrepid young reporter Purab (Riteish Deskmukh) noses around the fishy business, finds ‘proof’ which is essentially is another over-enthusiastic sting operation, and so unearths ‘the terrible truth.’  Like the good boy that he is, he dutifully delivers it to his hero Vijay, who nobly apologises for his pig-headedness and that of his son’s on live broadcast along with a few personal dedications, an eight minute lecture on media and morality and takes leave.

So, it ends.

It’s not by accident that the women in the cast are missing from a mention here.  Notwithstanding the entirely expendable role as that of a snitch played by Nalini (Suchitra Krishnamoorthy), they are simply not even a part of the plot. Gul Panag’s role as Purab’s partner is blink-and-miss while Yasmin (Neetu Chandra) as Sudeep’s neurotic girl-friend does little else but to hover annoyingly on the screen like a mosquito you can’t wait to swat.

Even so, Rann’s white-and-black characters are still among the best things that can be said about it. The music is mediocre, the cinematography creepy.  And, the potential of the movie’s premise is lost in its craze for clichés and the sheer scantiness of its detailing. For instance, why the country’s most respected journalist would run an anonymous it-just-arrived-in-the-mail tape on national television without checking for sources, except to obviously further the plot, is beyond anyone’s comprehension.  That’s just the most glaring plot hole. There are many more. 

With the media being what it is today, the amount of ammunition available for RGV to work with is staggering, if only he had cared to scratch beyond the surface.  In the absence of that, Rann is, just like the news channels in it that he points fingers at – a farce. 

As a student of journalism, I object to Rann not because it mocks the media. But because it doesn't. Not nearly as well as it should have. 

PS: I watched Ishqiya after this. This is the review -- It was very WTF.  Even in a film noir kinda way.  That's it? Yup, that's it.