February 11, 2010

Rann Film Review

What makes RGV take a social subject but make a movie that doesn't glorify the problem as much as a filmmaker like Madhur Bandarkar would, is probably why he doesnt end up getting an award(should I have said a National Award? ). But one must say this has always been the 'RGV treatment' or the style of presenting movies with his own touch of fiction. A solid reason why his movies are still in great business even if they are not the cult kinds .

Rann, probably one of the most anticipated movie to begin with for this year, is this one serious story of what media and mediamen are capable of. A tale that talks of how media can change the dynamics of a country, how greed of a few men can influence people through a strong medium called television channel and its sensationalism.

The movie talks nothing that we do not know of, it depicts exactly what happens inside the studios of all our famous television channels. It portrays the antics by media moguls to create news(than to report news) and to create sensationalism to increase their TRPs which in turn increases their ad revenues. Where Rann scores is that it does not show the warfare between media competitors rather its the battle between the judicious and malicious use of media. Salutations to RGV for not making this storyline as a surreal docu-drama, rather garnishing it with his own style of commercialism.

Vijay Harshwardhan Malik played by Amitabh Bachan is a very righteous person who thinks media is the third eye of the common man and it should bring out all the truth he needs to see. He has been running and heading his television channel India 24*7. His son Jai Malik, played by Sudeep joins him in business after returning from the US. Jai has his unconventional ways of running business, which Vijay is hesitant of but would like to give a try to keep his son's thoughts running.

In such a step, Jai is shackled in problems of competition. He ends up in the vicious circle of his brother in law(Rajat Kapoor) and a bad politician Mohan Pandey(Paresh Rawal). Mohan in the pretext of helping Jai, seeks to use India 24*7 to strengthen his political career. Jai, in greed to be among the top media guy plays a part in the plans of Mohan Pandey.

Rann has its own doses of cliches too. The underdog hero becoming the savior of the nation at the end, the final power-packed emotional outburst of Vijay Malik and so on.

With respect to the performances, I must say Sudeep topped it all. The gray character Jai Malik played by him is probably the most memorable performance of the movie. He has always been one of those good picks from the Kannada industry who has a lot of mettle for acting. RGV has definitely made a good choice in Sudeep for the character of Jai Malik, the over ambitious media tycoon who has his own dose of nervousness and vagaries as a character. Amitabh Bachan might have had a cake walk in this role. After seeing him as Auro in Paa, I felt this must have been something that he would have done even when asleep. Nevertheless, its his charisma that carried out the Vijay Malik's character with the dignity it deserved. Vijay Deshmukh as the young and honest journalist and Monish Bhel as the opponent to Jai Malik's business were other credible roles. There was not much of women power in the movie, Suchitra Krishnamoorty, Gul Panang and Neetu Chandra just did their roles perfectly and couldnt have been better.

I would credit the writings by Rohit as very powerful ones in the script. Some of the dialogs were so well placed and had right messages going out. It just created that impact the scene wanted to carry and full marks to Rohit and RGV for ensuring this. Not much to talk on the music, it really could have been better.

RGV's choice of the tone and Amit Roy's frames were just perfect to complement it. RGV knows the mood of the movies he makes, if he had the dark tone in Sarkar or the eerie ones in his scary movies, he got the right tone of a studio look in this movie. Great job by Amit Roy too on that. A clean production execution with not much of sets, locations or artists just complimented to the movie's crispness.

Rann is not the movie that you would want to watch to keep your mood on a upbeat. Its probably not that Saturday night fun movie but it sure is the one that you would want to catch up when you have those occasional serious thoughts running in your mind about the society around you.

If not a must watch movie right away, it sure is a perfect one when you want a serious one, with that 'RGV touch'. :)

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