After a long hiatus, Ram Gopal Varma is back in form to reveal the hard-hitting reality of the electronic media. And yet again, he defies the stereotype. One may shower him with praises or hurl abuses, but he manages to arouse the right kind of curiosity in the viewer.
This time around, the maverick film-maker exposes the media bigwigs who are greedy for higher TRPs to climb the ladder of success. It gives rare insight into how media houses sensationalise any news piece to garner eyeballs along with a realistic take on the politician-industrialist nexus.
Rann is not superficial and that is where its novelty lies. So on one hand, you have the media ‘creating news’ for their vested interests while on the other hand, an ambitious son of an idealistic father succumbs to temptations and drags down his father for his own selfish reasons. As is expected though, good overpowers evil in the end.
Vijay Harshvardhan Malik (Amitabh Bachchan) is the owner of a private news channel, India 24X7 who swears by his moral values; he refuses to compromise on his ethics even though the channel is on the verge of bankruptcy. His son, Jay Malik (Sudeep) raises the channel to be a business enterprise and tries his best to sustain the channel, by hook or by crook. Amrish Kakkar (Monish behl), his biggest competitor sells stories in an entertaining package and thus gains high viewership.
The story takes a turn when a corrupt neta, Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal) tries to reap benefits out of Vijay’s channel via Navin (Amitabh’s son-in-law played by Rajat Kapoor). Pandey aspires to be the Prime Minister and plays dirty politics to fool the populace. Navin on the other hand, traps Jay into this and so the movie becomes a concoction of politics, greed and fraud.
The movie is fast-paced and the dialogues hard- hitting. Each and every member of the cast does their role justice, irrespective of the length. The script is tight and powerful and the presentation is marvelous. Though there are a few instances which get a little confusing, the climax makes up for the minor hiccups. The background score is decent and goes well with the theme of the film.
Amitabh Bachchan outshines everyone with a spectacular performance while Paresh Rawal is at his best. Mohnish Behl surprises the audience with his convincing act. Riteish Deshmukh has a small yet crucial role, and he does full justice to it. Suchitra Krishnamoorty and Rajpal Yadav perform brilliantly. Since this isn’t a women-oriented film, Neetu Chandra and Gul panag are not in the limelight.
All in all, Rann is a well-made film and is highly recommended.

My rating: 3.5/5