Rana Naidu series review: Venkatesh and Rana's walk on the wild … – The Hindu

Actors Venkatesh and Rana Daggubati weren’t kidding after they saved reiterating that their first net collection Rana Naidu is a household drama that’s greatest considered in isolation. This be aware of warning is for individuals who have adopted their work in Telugu cinema and may tune in anticipating one thing feel-good. Rana Naidu, Karan Anshuman and Suparn Varma’s Indian adaptation of the American collection Ray Donovan, is a darkish crime and household drama replete with intercourse, nudity and foul language. When you look previous this, the collection has a couple of issues going for it regardless that it’s flawed and at occasions, clunky.

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Rana Daggubati is forged as Rana Naidu, a fixer who cleans up the soiled secrets and techniques of celebrities in Mumbai. It might be as murky as retrieving a semen pattern being smuggled in an ice bucket (I’m not making this up)! For all that cleansing up act he does for others, Rana’s personal life is a large number with scars from the previous. 

The primary two episodes work as character introductions to the members of the Rana Naidu household — his spouse Naina (Surveen Chawla), a former actress in Telugu cinema earlier than she married Rana and moved to Mumbai, and their youngsters Ani (Madhav Dhingra) and Nitya (Afrah Sayed). Rana’s older brother Tej, the stunt choreographer (Sushant Singh), and youthful brother Jaffa (Abhishek Banerjee) each reel from scars from a tough childhood. There may be some kind of semblance to the household till the daddy, Naga Naidu (Venkatesh), steps out of Chanchalguda jail in Hyderabad and arrives in Mumbai.

The collection is crammed with characters that vary from brooding to excessive. Rana and his crew —  Lara (Lauren Robinson) and Srini (Adithya Menon) — placed on a stoic persona irrespective of how soiled a job they’re cleansing up. Their poker-faced expression provides away nothing and they don’t converse greater than what’s barely vital. In a single scene a personality asks Rana, if behind that stoic persona, he’s somebody who secretly cries watching Baghban on tv. On the different finish of the spectrum are the purportedly annoying character Prince Reddy (Gaurav Chopra), Naga’s older brother Surya (Ashish Vidyarthi), the financier OB Mahajan (Rajesh Jais) and the numerous girls they’ve liaisons with.

Karan and Suparn construct the world of Rana Naidu and its principal characters peppering them with Telugu strains and Dakhni phrases. ‘Baigan ke bataan’ and ‘izzat ka falooda’ are thrown round liberally for the characters which have their roots in Hyderabad. Naga Naidu is probably the most vibrant of the lot because the patriarch who is almost dismissive of the emotional trauma his sons carry since childhood. 

In distinction to the feel-good and family-friendly characters Venkatesh has performed in Telugu cinema for many years, he does all the pieces that may be thought-about inappropriate as Naga Naidu. And he appears to have had enjoyable strolling the wild facet. The face-offs between him and Rana are the excessive factors of the collection. The true-life uncle-nephew duo cease at nothing on the display screen. Rana has performed the dangerous man earlier, however this brooding act is in a darker house than his mainstream Bhallaladeva within the Baahubali movies. For probably the most half, he’s required to look brooding however the collection provides him the occasional window to painting the agony of a person who desperately desires to maintain his household afloat. Rana makes use of his towering character to play the menacing fixer and can also be convincing throughout his meltdowns or when he shares heat moments along with his youngsters who’re coping with their very own angst.

Rana Daggubati, Surveen Chawla, Afrah Sayed and Madhav Dhingra in ‘Rana naidu’
| Picture Credit score:
Sourabh Paul/Netflix

The merry-go-round of crime that shadows this household performs out for a lot too lengthy and never each subplot or character holds curiosity. The one which moved me probably the most is the story of Jaffa (Abhishek Banerjee comes up with an internalised, empathetic portrayal). When he opens up about his guilt of not saying a agency no to his abuser as a toddler, Suparn and Karan use the plot level to stress {that a} sufferer doesn’t should wallow in guilt. Each Abhishek and Sushant play their characters with sincerity. 

Surveen is forged in a component that may seem nagging with repetitive strains comparable to ‘what the hell, Rana?’ or ‘what the ****, Rana?’. Caught in a state of affairs the place she doesn’t know what risks the household faces and what precisely Rana is as much as, her anger isn’t misplaced. 

Whereas Naga’s characterisation shifts between dangerous, oblivious, ugly and an occasional streak of fine, the story doesn’t give a clear chit to Rana both. There’s Suchitra Pillai too however what precisely was the purpose of her character?

For Telugu film buffs of the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s, there are throwbacks to Venkatesh’s older movies and songs. For the others, there’s some morbid humour. Image a affected person asking a neurosurgeon what are his possibilities of survival after a surgical procedure for mind tumour and the subsequent shot exhibiting us the board ‘bheja fry 50%’. 

Beneath all that dressing up of intercourse, alcohol and expletives, Rana Naidu has an undercurrent of pathos. Cinematographer Jayakrishna Gummadi makes use of heat and darkish tones to intensify the grim ambiance, aided by John Stewart Eduri’s background rating.

There are a couple of rewarding payoffs in direction of the tip of the 10-episode collection. However general, can Rana Naidu be higher? Most positively.

(Rana Naidu streams on Netflix)

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