VR (Vikrant Rona)

Vikrant Rona could have been a great thriller. But it falls quite short. Set design, art direction, cinematography, and of course, Sudeep's acting are all pretty brilliant. The main core of the story is also not bad. Where it fails is in the execution.

We get to revisit Kamarottu again. You will be pumped up at the beginning. But then it devolves pretty quickly. The climax is much better than the rest of the movie though.

The things that went wrong with the movie are-

1) Romance: This kills the movie singlehandedly. It's slow, uninteresting, too long, bores the heck out of you by killing the main story's momentum a thousand times.

2) Songs: They are ok-ish, but every one of them feels out of place and unnecessary.

3) The movie's characters and their mannerisms are hyper-urban and their conversations use too much of fine English/Hindi for a story set in the middle of a place like Kamarottu. I hated this in Rangitharanga and hated it even more in VR. (Sudeep/Anup can learn a thing or two on this aspect by watching movies of Rakshith/Rishabh/Raj Shetty.)

4) One of the climax's big reveals can be seen right away in the beginning. The director's attempts to hide it becomes annoyingly way too obvious.

5) The small things that further degrade the movie are the cheap jump scares, terrible jokes, cliched horror-movie scenes, forgettable dialogues, poor acting by Nirup Bhandari, and too much of melodrama.

Despite all these negatives, the movie has some great moments, and they show the potential of the director. I hope he does a better job in his future ventures.

All my stars are for the 2nd half & climax.

The 1st half drags with unnecessary songs, heroism & some useless character /actors J . Fernandes being one of them.

Imagine a shorter 1hr 50 mins with a tight script would have made a gem.

Rangitaranga was better not the best due the same reasons.

The 2nd half justifies the 1st even though many unnecessary elements could have been avoided.

Acting is good, photography , art direction looks decent but action seems too over the top. 3D release is just a gimmick.

As far as its visual aesthetics and sound design is concerned; the movie set a new standard for all the regional industries around. The massive sets, the gorgeous color grading, and the art direction, in general, have valiantly put forth an immaculate display that ostensibly had both style and significance! Sadly, the same set of remarks does not seem to apply to the script!

The sort of grace they effortlessly conveyed through their graphical presentation is missing in their Writing counterpart. While the narrative tends to get pretty gloomy and ambitious with its somewhat serious tonality, the 'supposed' twists and turns, however, fail to create a lasting impact.

Despite having a bunch of known faces in the ensemble, almost all the characters come off as premature, and underdeveloped. With the sole exception of our lead protagonist, Vikrant Rona, played by an ever charismatic Kichcha Sudeepa who with his incessant appeal more than makes up for the apparent inadequacies.

It's certainly a step in the right direction as well as a big leap for the Kannada Industry, but still, they have a long way to go, and lots of hurdles to overcome.

VikrantRona (2022)

Easily one of the best thriller in recent time with a perfect mix of adventure, fantasy and horror backdrop. Top notch making, Background scoring, Quality VFX, 3D Effects and a decent last min twist elevated the film.

Worth a Theatre Experience.

Booked 1st day 1st show ticket, had expectations of thriller adventure, but Bang Bang Bang the devil just sang Dead man's Anthem... ultimate plot twists...Its a mixture of everything - adventure, fights, horror, action and most importantly BGM, direction and cinematography...they just stand top... Honestly This film cannot be compared with KGF chapters and RRR...it entirely different in terms of story and making...It has its own appealing content...In this film you won't see any single character boost.... there are multiple character boosts....1st half story pick up with amazing interval...2nf half just play's with your mind.... amazing and proud of this film...As said expect the unexpected 🔥