Film review: 'Rann' is unidimensional, doesn't work

Film: Rann
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh, Paresh Rawal, Mohnish Behl, Rajat Kapoor, Sudeep and others
Rating: **

A little known show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, premiered its pilot on NBC in 2006. The show was about the lives of people working on a late night comedy show and a comment on TV programming in general.

The pilot I'm talking about had the creator of the show go on air and, in an unexpected outburst, tell audiences about the dirty game played by TV networks in the race for TRPs and how instead of money fuelling creativity, the TV business had become a means for creativity to fuel money.

The scene was probably one of the best opening sequences in a show, which sadly didn't last for more than one season because viewers found it to be 'too technical'.

I wouldn't be surprised if Rohit Banawlikar - credited with writing Rann even though a certain Sonal Mehta claims it's her script - was inspired by the Studio 60 sequence and wove a story around it, which resulted in the latest 'Ram Gopal Varma film'.

In Rann, media baron Vijay Harshvardhan Malik (Amitabh Bachchan) delivers a similar monologue. For around 8 minutes, Bachchan looks into the camera and talks about the corrupting nature of the news business in India and about how the politician-businessman nexus has a third ally now - the media.

The scene stands out for a very simple fact - Bachchan himself. Subdued for most of the film, Bachchan finally gets to display his famous histrionics in the penultimate sequence, and expectedly, does a great job of it.

There is little movement in the dark theatre as a measured and mesmerising Bachchan looks at you with moist, piercing eyes and laments about how, instead of money being a means for delivering news, it's the other way round.

The problem with Rann is that, save that one sequence and some interesting moments leading up to it, the film is a drag. At interval point, in fact, you aren't even sure where the film's going. In the second half, when you find out where the film is going, you realise that it isn't really going anywhere at all.

Ok, the film tells you how news on television is manipulated to suit the needs of politicians and about the abuse of the media's power to mislead the aam janta. Point noted.

But the one-sidedness of the script makes you question if the film is supposed to be a realistic depiction or merely a punching bag for the electronic media, which has faced enough flak in the past already.

We all know that television today is more about entertainment than it is about news. We all know that some channels act as a mouthpiece for certain political parties, something prevalent in a lot of other countries including the US as shown in the film, Lions for Lambs. We also know that a lot of things you see on television can't be taken seriously.

But was it necessary to present each character like they come from another world? Malik's rival Ambrish Kakkad (Behl) - who is also the head of the channel with the highest TRPs in India - mouths dialogues like "News ko masala banake becho". Politician Mohan Pandey (Rawal) walks around with gulaal applied on his forehead and shouts into the microphone every time he gives an interview.

Businessman Navin Shankalya (Kapoor) smirks at the littlest of things, and Malik's son Jay (Sudeep, seen before in Phoonk), grunts and smokes and yells, "Everything is over," when Kakkad's channel lifts an entire bouquet of shows he'd been working on for some weeks.

These unidimensional, repetitive and irritating 'caricatures' get on your nerves, even as the script moves from one scene to another in the most hurried fashion. It's not like they aren't long drawn enough to induce yawns, but the story in itself seems to move at a snail's pace.

The film only catches some pace when a young journalist Purab Shastri (Deshmukh), the only honest character in the film (this one's on the other end of the spectrum - again unidimensional), starts to unravel the mystery behind Pandey's rise to the post of prime minister.

Some interesting scenes and Bachchan's monologue later, the film ends on a Sarkar-ish note, with Malik passing over his legacy and news channel to Shastri to run.

Some of the points raised in the film are valid. Rajpal Yadav's character, who is more of a joker than a news presenter, seems real only because we are used to watching some overdramatic, cartoonish characters on our news channels. A minister's speech edited in a way that it seems like he's saying something else is entertaining too.

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.

The acting is inconsistent. Riteish Deshmukh does well in an intense role, while Sudeep goes overboard at most times. Gul Panag shrieks through most of the film. The troika of Paresh Rawal, Rajat Kapoor and Mohnish Behl remind you of Subhash Ghai villains - plotting and planning and grinning pointlessly. Bachchan, of course, breathes life in the film whenever he's on screen.

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. Extreme close-ups, dark environs, a garish back ground score - Rann's soundtrack is awful, to say the least - we've seen it all in previous Varma films.

If he insists on continuing with his style of filmmaking, the least he can do is ensure that there's a great script to back it up. This one, though, seems to be a rush job.

Rann just doesn't work.