Rann

About the film

Rann (transl. Battle) is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language political thriller film written and directed by Ram Gopal Varma. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sudeep, Riteish Deshmukh, Paresh Rawal, and Gul Panag. The film was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film explores the reality of sensational nature of news and mass media and political nexus.

A strategy mobile video game based on the film was also released by Indiagames as a promotional tie-in.

Plot

Vijay Harshvardhan Malik is a reputed journalist and the CEO of India 24x7, a struggling news channel falling behind to rival channel Headlines 24, headed by Vijay's former employee Amrish Kakkar, which is thriving primarily because of their focus on aesthetic journalism. Malik's son Jay, who has recently returned to India after completing his MBA in the US, runs the channel going against his father's morals. Jay plans to launch new channels much to the disapproval of his father and employee, Purab Shastri, a budding journalist.

Nalini Kashyap, India 24x7's COO, was discovered to be leaking information about launching new shows to Kakkar, which were conceived by Vijay and Jay, in exchange for money. Jay had borrowed ₹ 30 crores from investors to launch new channels and, with India 24x7 failing miserably, is in a large sum of debt. Jay's brother-in-law Naveen Shankalya partners with corrupt politician Mohan Pandey, who orchestrated a bomb blast in Muzaffarnagar, to modify all industrial policies in his favour and eventually become India's biggest industrialist.

Pandey creates a conspiracy involving the Prime Minister Digvijay Hooda, his associate Atul Kumar Dubey and another man allegedly named Khanna. Dubey and Khanna are forced by Pandey and are recorded by Jay to discuss the aftermath of the bomb blast and falsely accuse Hooda of organising the blast to create fear amongst the public. Jay shows the footage to Vijay and convinces him to expose Hooda to the public immediately. Vijay, being honest and dutiful, addresses the fabricated news to the public. This leads to a coup d'état and several journalists sabotage the footage to make Hooda seem guilty. Pandey assassinates Dubey and Khanna to ensure that there are no obstacles, whilst Khanna's identity and whereabouts are still under speculation from the public. In the elections, Pandey becomes the frontrunner to be elected as Prime Minister.

Reception

Taran Adarsh praised the film and its cast, especially Amitabh Bachchan. Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India gave the film four stars, calling it a "riveting experience." Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL gave the film 3.5 out of a possible 5 and said, "Overall, 'Rann' is quite an inspirational fare. It might just teach you to own up and admit that you were wrong at point."

while other critics complained that the film is cliché.

Soundtrack

The film's music is composed by Amar Mohile, Dharmaraj Bhatt, Sandeep Patil, Kumar Bapi, Sanjeev Kohli and Jayesh Gandhi. The lyrics were written by Prashant Pandey and Sarim Momin. The title song, "Rann Hai", was written by Vayu. The background score of the film was composed by Dharmaraj Bhatt and Sandeep Patil. The track "Sikkon Ki Bhook" was also composed by the duo. The lyrics are written by Vayu.

Key details