What’s unforgiving about Season two is the way the ever-so-entertaining Venkatesh Daggubati is under-utilised, complains Mayur Sanap.
I didn’t mind the first season of Rana Naidu.
As the Indian adaptation of the American show Ray Donovan, it was an interesting mix of stylish thriller and ‘mass cinema’ energy, with a flashy acting showcase for Rana Daggubati and Venkatesh Daggubati.
The Daggubatis are back as the Naidus, an estranged father-son duo who shares a love-hate relationship.
The sequel is just as flashy.
If the first season was all about fighting with the family, Rana Naidu 2 is about protecting that family.
In a welcoming change, the overkill of cusswords and sexually explicit scenes are toned-down.
Yet, Rana Naidu 2 ends up being a downer mess despite a very good cast doing their best to hold it together.
The show picks up where we left off in the last season.
After parting ways with OB Mahajan (Rajesh Jais), Rana (Rana Daggubati) promises his wife Naina (Surveen Chawla) to give up his life as ‘fixer’ — a one-stop solution for the richie rich to clean up their dirty deeds.
Things get sinister when Rana’s past enemy Rauf Mirza (Arjun Rampal) returns and haunts him for their old beef.
This pushes Rana to go back to his old ways.
He strikes a deal with Alia Oberoi (Kriti Kharbanda), a savvy business mind who bids for a cricket team to start over from her family’s loss-making film business. This strains her relationship with her father (Rajat Kapoor) and brother (Tanuj Virwani).
At home, Rana is confronted by Naina about the suspicion of his affair with Alia.
The growing detachment makes Naina confide in her friend Naveen (Dino Morea), who comes with his own ulterior motive.
There are also Rana’s brothers Tej (Sushant Singh) dealing with his past and Jaffa (the scene-stealing Abhishek Banerjee) trying to find his feet.
If Rana Naidu had a mostly linear stortyline focusing on the father-son dynamic, Season two packs multiple plot threads that connect to the central narrative of Rauf’s threat for Rana.
But the writing is decidedly mediocre.
Karan Anshuman, and co-directors Suparn S Varma and Abhay Chopra go after a tired premise with all-too-familiar elements of suspicion, scheming, and vengeance. It is stylish and visually impressive throughout, but at eight episodes of an average of 50 minutes each, it feels mostly an empty exercise of style over substance without the necessary dramatic cohesion to keep us engaged.
Rana Daggubati is once again solid as the protagonist of the show, but he is achingly one-note without any new layers or revelations to his character.
Arjun Rampal is suitably deadpan as the baddie who shows no remorse, no ache.
The most enjoyable of all is Kriti Kharbanda’s scheming woman who is just so nonchalant about her nasty ways.
‘Maine aaj tak tumhare jaise kamina nahin dekha,’ A character, who just got deceived, says to her.
She retorts, ‘Kamini, sir, kamini. Get your gender right.’
It’s a delicious character and Kriti plays her with complete relish.
What’s unforgiving about Season two is the way the ever-so-entertaining Venkatesh Daggubati is under-utilised.
The senior Daggubati gets into his brazen, brassy mode as Naga Naidu, but his character fizzles out in the proceedings, offering barely anything of value in this season, leaving a sense of letdown.
Rana Naidu Season 2 streams on Netflix.
Rana Naidu Season 2 Review Rediff Rating:
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