Star Cast: Rana Daggubati, Venkatesh Daggubati, Surveen Chawla, Arjun Rampal, Sushant Singh, Abhishek Banerjee
Web Series Review: Rana Naidu Season 2 is an average yet watchable ride powered by strong performances and Season 1’s goodwill
Director: Karan Anshuman, Suparn S Varma, Abhay Chopra
Synopsis:
RANA NAIDU SEASON 2 is the story of a fixer who faces his biggest adversary. After the events of the first part, Rana Naidu (Rana Daggubati) becomes a dutiful husband. He leaves the services of OB Mahajan (Rajesh Jais) and goes on a holiday to France with his wife Naina (Surveen Chawla). As soon as they return, they learn that their son Ani (Madhav Dhingra) is kidnapped and is held in Goa. Rana is running short of time and hence approaches Viraj Oberoi (Rajat Kapoor), owner of Oberoi Studios, for help. Viraj lends his private job and in return, asks Rana to work for him. Rana agrees. In Goa, Rana’s trail leads him to his father Naga (Venkatesh Daggubati). Naga helps Rana in locating Ani. Naga is in trouble after he fails to repay the money that he loaned from Anjali aka Auntie (Heeba Shah), who incidentally, is also the second wife of the deceased gangster, Surya Rao (Ashish Vidyarthi). Naga once again approaches Rana for help and even comes to Mumbai. In Mumbai, Tej (Sushant Singh) reconnects with Ana (Ishitta Arun). Ana wishes to settle permanently in Portugal and Tej agrees to move with her. This causes friction between Rana and Tej. Rana and Naina’s troubles resume and Naina gets attracted to fellow yoga enthusiast Naveen (Dino Morea). On the other hand, Rauf (Arjun Rampal), a dreaded gangster from Worli Koliwada, went behind bars due to Rana and OB. He’s hell-bent on exacting revenge from both. If that’s not all, Rana also gets into trouble with his new boss, Viraj, when the former goes behind the latter’s back and helps Viraj’s daughter Alia (Kriti Kharbanda) buy a T-20 cricket league team. What happens next forms the rest of the series.
Rana Naidu Season 2 Story Review:
Karan Anshuman, Ryan Soares, Karmanya Ahuja, Karan Gour and Ananya Mody’s story is promising and nicely takes the story of the Naidu family forward. Karan Anshuman, Ryan Soares, Karmanya Ahuja, Karan Gour and Ananya Mody’s screenplay has its share of merits. Like last time, this season is also gripping as there’s a lot happening at any given moment. However, the writing is faulty in places. Vaibhav Vishal’s dialogues are massy.
Karan Anshuman, Suparn S Varma and Abhay Chopra’s direction is decent. In the last season, except for the father, Rana and his family were always on the same page. Here, the family goes against him and that creates an interesting conflict. The characters of Rauf and Viraj are poles apart and yet make life hell for Rana in equal measures; this bit also works fairly well for most of the show. The USP of the show continues to be Rana’s love-hate bond with his father and his wife. The beginning of the season is very dramatic. The way the story then goes back and forth will make the audience curious about what to expect. A few scenes that stand out are Viraj learning about Rana’s stake in the cricket company, Nitya (Afrah Sayed) witnessing gruesome murders, the Goa episode, Naga and Tej attempting a robbery, etc. The tension levels go high in the last episode.
On the flipside, the writing is of convenience; things just happen, it raises questions and some of these questions are never answered. The circumstances under which Rana leaves OB is not convincingly depicted and the makers rush through this part. The enmity between Rauf and Rana is not neatly established. The makers try to be stylish by showing Naga escaping from the Koliwada and there’s a parallel scene going on where Jaffa is on a woman’s bicycle; the experiment doesn’t yield results. It is bewildering that Jaffa is marrying Tasneem (Aditi Shetty) but her family is absent on the big day. One wouldn’t have minded this bit but then this show constantly stresses on family. Also, Tasneem herself brags about her ancestral home in Satara which further gives an indication that she comes for a loaded family. However, the makers never stressed it further. Rana and his team are shown to be expert ‘fixers’ and yet they don’t remove blood stains from the sword. Lastly, certain characters are given a raw deal and the manner in which a crucial character just disappears all of a sudden is astonishing.
Rana Naidu Season 2 Performances:
Rana Daggubati and Venkatesh Daggubati deliver stupendous performances and are the strengths of the show. Rana is subtle while Venkatesh goes all out. Yet, both make sure their act doesn’t go overboard. Surveen Chawla yet again plays a crucial character with aplomb. Afrah Sayed and Madhav Dhingra are very impressive. Sushant Singh and Abhishek Banerjee give adorable performances. Dino Morea is decent. Arjun Rampal looks terrifying and is damn good as the antagonist. The suave Rajat Kapoor is apt for the part. Kriti Kharbanda delivers a confident performance and is sure to get noticed. Ishitta Arun and Aditi Shetty lend able support. Rajesh Jais and Heeba Shah hardly have anything to do. Tanuj Virwani (Chirag) is horribly wasted. He simply vanishes all of a sudden; no explanations given! Adithya Menon (Srini) is fair but his track is not properly fleshed out. Lauren Robinson (Lara), as expected, is dependable and the same goes for Tenzin Dalha (Arjun) and Bodhisattva Sharma (Rehan). The others who do well are Himanshu Ashok Malhotra (Paritosh), Chaitanya Solankar (Cheeku), Saurav Khurana (Zayed Mirza), Tareeq Ahmed Khan (Shakeel) and Samarth Shandilya (Toofan).
Rana Naidu Season 2 music and other technical aspects:
The two songs are forgettable. John Stewart Eduri’s background score is in sync with the show’s mood. John Schmidt’s cinematography is appropriate. Theia Tekchandaney’s costumes are stylish. Abhijeet Gaonkar and Sonam Singh’s production design are classy, yet also unreal in some scenes. Aejaz Gulab and Amritpal Singh’s action is disturbing but a bit less gory than in Season 1. Manan Mehta and Ninad Khanolkar’s editing is functional.
Rana Naidu Season 2 Review Conclusion:
On the whole, RANA NAIDU SEASON 2 works due to the performances of the lead actors, tense and funny moments and massy dialogues. But at the same time, it also suffers because of faulty writing. Nevertheless, the presence of well-known actors and the goodwill earned by Season 1 are likely to ensure strong viewership.
Rating: 2.5 stars
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