RangiTaranga

This is a period where Kannada Audience are dying for quality movies, Quality directors are dying for screens and Distributors are dying for screening other language movies.

There Comes Anup Bhandari from US to direct a movie with one thing : Passion. Movie releases, people initially hesitate to go to theater as Rangitaranga is full of newbies. Within a Day Social Network goes for a toss with everybody checking in at theaters watching Kannada Movie and writing awesome reviews. More people start going to theaters. Houseful on weekdays and with in a week Boom gone. Bahubali releases and most of the screens are taken to screen it.

Having said this before reviewing the movie, it is necessary for the reader to initially understand how much the movie is liked in Sandalwood.

Since the beginning till climax, movie keeps you nail biting on the edge of your seat. It takes 99% of screen time to understand whether its a horror, psych, or a thriller movie. The twists in the movie will definitely encourage Abbas Mastan to try remaking this (May be Race- Taranga :P). Direction / Narration is the key. Actors have complimented the director with mind blowing performances. Back ground score is icing on the cake. Just Brilliant.

Audience will be left scratching their head at interval. And they will be wow stuck in the end. Another feather on SaiKumar's cap for his magnificent role.

Hats Off

Cinematography and tight screenplay is the heart and soul of the film.Anoop's brilliance is seen in every frame and hard work of the entire team is reflected for 2 plus hours on screen! Newbies Nirup, Radhika and Avantika have done a neat job; they look like the people next door, which make the movie close to heart. Sai Kumar's performance too is brilliant. AjaneeshLoknath's compositions are good; Songs AkkaPakka and EeSanje are good. AkkaPakka has topped the charts from the day of the audio release. KeleCheluve- a Yakshgana redemption gives a new feel to the audience. Kareyole kareyole is well stitched with maximum letter 'ka', with strong words. Overall, a good album by AjaneeshLoknath. It's time to support and encourage this talented bunch of film-makers by watching this film. Recently added subs for the people who don't know Kannada. MUST MUST MUST watch the movie.

One intriguing story itself is a rarity these days. Here we have three stories intertwined delicately in one delectable combo. With a wonderful story as the spine, the movie has some impeccable technical work. Amazing direction, crisp editing, music, songs and BGM helps the flow. Camera work is true in capturing the natural beauty of the ghats and accentuating it in places. The underwater fight scene, wow! Slick editing and mixing, the dairy script as the border of the flashback scenes are a nice touch. Very good (sometimes mature) acting by the debutant(e)s. The girls are not just oomph and acting scared, but adding value to every scene. Could have chosen more local actors like the adorable driver Rapeeqk :) for the teacher and postmaster roles. Their accents are a bit out of place. What happens to the murders might be one open question? Chance for a sequel? We would love to wait!

There are horror movies which offer mainly jumpscares and there are some which will be haunting even after the movie. And then there's this new wave called RangiTaranga – which offers brilliant jump-scares and leaves you haunting even after you come out of the theatre. Not many movies can do that. RangiTaranga doesn't stick to one genre. Director Anup bhandari has played with the genres according to the neatly written and twisted but brilliant screenplay.

The good news is Rangitaranga satisfies all kinds of audience be it frolic seeking janata or experience seeking world cinema followers. While normal audience can soak in the brilliant BGM and the creepy scares with frequent twists, the latter who can appreciate the technicality and the writing of the movie! There are actually more than one story to this movie. The main plot is about the haunted house 'Kamaruttu' and the theories and mysteries surrounding it! Like other movies even this had a similar format but interesting thing about this is the premise. It's surely something new to our audience and there's a lot of detail involved. And the director establishes some really good things and characters in the premise that keeps you thinking. Another story is about Gautham(Nirup bhandari) and Indu(Radhika Chetan) who come to Kamaruttu for a different purpose. And they have their own dark past to worry about. And the final arc is about Sandhya(Avanthika Shetty) looking for a writer called Anashku, who also heads to the same place.

The purposes of these main characters, the mystery surrounding the place, their dark past and how these arcs connect together forms the main crux of the plot. Anup Bhandari has cautiously tried to narrate all these stories with a gripping screenplay and he has pulled it off brilliantly. Right from the first scene, the movie starts to cast its spell on the audience.The first half is mainly about introducing the characters,establishing the premise, providing clues and ending with a great twist while the Second half caters to revelations and connecting all the loose ends! Frequent twists keep the viewers intriguing till the end.

Some scenes are really spine chilling, thanks to the amazing BGM by Ajaneesh Loknath who is definitely the third hero to this movie.Technically the movie is just perfect and they have not compromised anywhere. Cinematographers Lance Kaplan and David Williams should take a bow. The light setting, the camera angles are different and it uplifts the movie to a whole new level. People often confuse rich visuals with richly spent visuals but this movie defines what rich visuals and cinematography is. And the scares wouldn't have been this extremely effective if it wasn't for the editing! It is perfectly done most of the time! The pure Kannada lyrics for all the songs by Anup Bhandari is one more plus point to this movie. They are mostly situational.

Coming to the performances, Nirup Bhandari looks good and for a debut he does a good job but should have done better in a few sequences. The two lead actresses are another great find after Nabha(Vajrakaya) & Priyanka(Ganapa). Avanthika gets to shine more than Radhika and they were great in their roles. Ananth Rao plays a good intimidating cop and other supporting actors do their job well. And there's another important character called KaaLinga Bhat played by Sai Kumar. After Kalpana he comes back with a brilliant role to play. His dialogue delivery, his presentation and his variation in acting is exceptional. There are minor negatives – Some dialogues lacked the feel and punch while a few questions are left unanswered, maybe they weren't relevant to the main plot nevertheless it's easily one of the strongest content dependent movie to come in the recent times after Krishna Leela.

The movie definitely lived up to the hype. Brilliant, it was just brilliant! Acting, story, screenplay, music, scenery, and most importantly, the mystery - everything helped in making it a gripping movie that kept us at the edge of our seats throughout.

When the movie reaches the climax, and you get a hang of everything, you can almost hear that collective sigh of relief from everyone - for the mystery, that kept everyone speculate among each other for more than two hours, that was finally revealed, and for the happy realization that the money paid for the movie was pretty damn worth it.

Could have shortened the movie a little bit, and this is possibly the only thing one would find, if they dig deep to find a negative about the film.

What are you waiting for? Go watch RANGITARANGA. Here is a potential 100-150 day movie. Make it reach there. I am watching again for sure. Sakkath movie guru!