When Uncle Venkatesh and Nephew Rana teamed for the first time for a webseries, Rana Naidu, an Indian adaptation of the American TV series ‘Ray Donovan' movie lovers got excited. The trailers and teasers of the webseries sent shockwaves as Venkatesh is seen in a ferocious avatar and Rana is seen in a rugged rough and tough role. The webseries is streaming on Netflix and let us find out what Rana Naidu offered to movie lovers.
Rana Naidu's story is all about ego clashes between father and son and how their family rivalry snowballed into a bigger controversy. Rana Naidu (Rana) wields so much influence in Mumbai that he solves the problems of all the celebrities. However, his happy and cherished life gets shock when his father Naga Naidu (Venaktesh) lands in Mumbai. What is the conflict between Rana and his father Naga Naidu and why Naga was in jail, why Rana is staying away from his wife Naina (Surveen Chawla) and children and what is his relationship with his brothers Tej Naidu (Sushanth Singh) and Pawan Naidu, aka Jaffa (Abhishek Banerjee) form the crux of the story.
Rana played a major part in the webseries. He got the prominent role and did full justice to it. He made his presence felt in each and every scene. At times however he went overboard in the heat of the moment.
Venkatesh turns out to be the surprise package. He played an intense role for the first time in his career. He underwent a transformation for his role with regard to his look and mannerisms. He with his experience elevated the scenes by balancing with his performance. Viewers will get shocked at the way, he used foul language with ease.
Abhishek Banerjee played an important role of Jaffa and he made his presence felt. Others like Gaurav Chopra, Sushant Singh, Surveen Chawla, Priya Banerjee, and Adithya Menon performed accordingly.
Director duo Suparn Verma & Karan Anshuman tried to recreate the popular webseries according to the tastes of India. They tried to maintain the intensity levels and create excitement and roped in Venkatesh and Rana. Though Venkatesh starred in a role that he did never before and Rana also played an intense role, they failed to create an impact with the story, screenplay, and direction. The story of father-son rivalry is seen in many films and webseries in various languages across the country. As it is an Indian adaptation of the US drama Ray Donovan which had a US backdrop of Los Angeles and New York, the directors changed the setup to India and to the cities of Mumbai and Hyderabad.
Except for that the entire plot and narration remain the same. They went bold inspired by the freedom webseries gives in the name of creativity. The webseries has ten episodes and for the most part, all the episodes witness the introduction of characters and they disappear within no time testing the patience of the viewers. The narration after the interesting start turns routine with nothing much happening and the story picks up pace only during the last two episodes.
The episodes highlighted the family problems of Rana and Naga and most of the time concentrated on it. The writers have taken many creative liberties but none of them are interesting or engaging. The makers could have halved the episodes and saved the time of the viewers. The story turned out to be extremely weak and from then onwards it's a complete downside. With a lack of emotional content, the screenplay and direction turned out to be pretty ordinary. Dialogues penned by Vaibhav Vishal are full of slang and slurs and nothing more to talk about.
John Stewart Eduri's music is ok. However, his background score increased the intensity in the run-up to the climax. The editing of Ninad Khanolkar could have been far better. There are many scenes that slowed the pace of the film testing the patience of the viewers. Jayakrishna Gummadi of cinematography is good. He showed the scenes using the right lighting effect and angles to appeal to the viewers. Production values are good.
Altogether, Rana Naidu for all the hype with the presence of real-life relatives Venkatesh and Rana failed to set the screens on fire. Directors Suparn Verma & Karan Anshuman instead of coming up with a powerful story, intense narration, racy screenplay, and intelligent direction, seems to have depended more on cuss words, obscene language, and skin show. If this is the creativity there are looking for while making a webseries then they are completely mistaken. Rana and Venkatesh tried to save Rana Naidu that is loaded with substandard content with their spirited performances. But this did not make any difference. Considering all these points, Cinejosh goes with a 2 rating for Rana Naidu.