Rann is a lot. It’s a good movie on a good topic. It’s Ram Gopal Varma back to the form; quite as he was in Sarkar. It’s an actor’s wonderful entry in Bollywood (though he was in Phoonk and is a well known Kannada hero). And above all these, it’s something that we should see.

Rann is a story of a person who is an ideal journalist in today’s time, ready to sacrifice TRPs for content and real news. A person who believes that a newspaper/channel should not take anything from anyone and knows there are no free lunches. But the good part is that even with Amitabh Bachchan playing this iconic role of Vijay Harshvardhan Malik, the movie is a story that does not completely belong to one person. The story gives space to its characters and you can see shades of grey in most of the characters even if they are in black or white.

The story of the film is definitely good and keeps you there even though many times you get an idea what is going to happen in the next scene. And then, there are moments in the movie which give you a high, making the movie what it is. The story has pace and looks quite crisp and though the end is a bit too long, it’s all worth a watch and thinking.

The best part of the movie is… it’s story, direction and acting. While the story and direction were good, actors have given some great performances in Rann. Amitabh is perfect for the role, even though he reminds one of Sarkar at times, while being all powerful and authoritative. Sudeep as Jai Malik is a watchable performance that matches Paresh Rawal’s awesome work in the movie.

Riteish Deshmukh is simply good while Gul Panag looks natural in her little role. Mohnish Behl gets a wonderful role and he performs with his usual sincerity. Or rather does better than his usual good. Suchitra Krishnamurthy is fine, but not as good as I was expecting from her, being so experienced. Rajat Kapoor doesn’t have much to do. But Rajpal Yadav gets a good role and while doing a better kind of comedy, he shows quite some truth.

The only disappointing part of the movie is its music. While a few songs are good in background as expected, some are unnecessarily obscene, especially Gali Gali mein shor hai. Even the background music in the movie gets too high when not so required. Still, that doesn’t give an overall bad effect.

In short, Rann is certainly worth a watch if you like reality, watch films for more than just entertainment, or have been an RGV fan sometime. Maybe you become one again.

The music composers for the film are Bapi-Tutul, a regular with RGV; Amar Mohile, one of the most popular background composers; Sanjeev Kohli, and singer Jayesh Gandhi.

The only point worth mentioning is that the song Jan Gan Man Rann is not there in the soundtrack of the movie. Here is the detail about the rest.

Besharam is a 3 minute song sung by Abhishek Naiwal who had earlier sung a wonderful song called Jalte Hain in Sorry Bhai. Here the song is completely different. The song is the type of Gulaal’s Aarambh, but, stop, it’s almost a thousandth part (or maybe less) of the Piyush Misra’s wonder.

Gali Gali mein shor hai has been given a music something like we used to hear twenty years ago when DD started its programs in the morning or evening. Hardly ten seconds and the song suddenly moves somewhere else. The song is full of top-level slangs and beeps but words are very clearly understood in many places. Lyrics go too much but Jojo has sung the song well anyway.

‘Kaanch ke Jaise’ is a title that will certainly attract your eyes when it’s written with Sukhwinder’s name. But when you listen to the song, you may be disappointmented. Sukhwinder has given his best to the half-good lyrics but sheer absence of background music demands very high quality of lyrics. Still, okay by the standards of the album.

Mera Bharat Mahan sung by Kunal Ganjawala is hugely disappointing. Though the song has a few good words like ‘aam aadmi ki desh bhakti bas itni, black mein dekhe Chak De ya Lagaan’, the song is not something you would like to listen to.

Rann hai, composed and sung by Sanjeev Kohli, though, is a level above and manages to sound not-so-avoidable. The song sounds just okay but might work good enough in the background if put properly.

Remote ko Bahar Phenk is something that sounds mad with very prosy lyrics and too many sounds of TV clips. But the song sounded fine after sometime and my guess is the song can be quite interesting in the movie.

Sikkon ki Bhookh, also named as the Vande Mataram Song, is a level above the rest of the album. While the music in the song is a bit better, good lyrics and the female voice have made the song sound better than others. Kind of good.

Overall, Rann is an album that is completely avoidable for the time being. Watch the movie and then decide if you liked some song in the movie. Sikkon ki Bhookh, Rann hai and remote ko bahar phenk be tried first if you must.

My only pick of the album is Sikkon ki Bhookh and the reason is these four lines:

sikkon ki andhi bhookh hai
kisson ka ek baazar hai
ab cheer cheer ke bech do
khud draupadi tayyar hai..