Vikrant Rona is a 2022 Indian Kannada-language action thriller film[13] written and directed by Anup Bhandari, produced by Jack Manjunath and co-produced by Alankar Pandian.
[14][15] It stars Sudeepa in the title role with Milana Nagaraj, Nirup Bhandari, Neetha Ashok, and Jacqueline Fernandez.
[16] The story revolves around Inspector Vikrant Rona, who arrives at a remote village in the middle of a tropical rainforest where he starts witnessing a series of unexplainable events which are attributed to the supernatural.
The next day, we meet Janardhan Gambira, a short-tempered landlord living with his wife, Shaku, and brother, Eknath.
His friend’s son, Vishwanath, arrives with his family, including his daughter Panna, who is engaged and wants her wedding in their ancestral house.
Janardhan refuses, saying the house is haunted after his son, Sanju, was accused of stealing temple jewels 28 years ago.
That night, Sanju returns from London and, with Panna, finds the beheaded corpse of police officer Suresh Krishna in the house well.
He survives an attack and finds eerie clues, including a ₹1 note, cryptic writing, and signs of past child murders.
Meanwhile, Panna investigates on her own and finds an old woman, Deyyu, in the ancestral house, along with Suresh Krishna’s severed head.
While interrogating him, he learns that the murdered children’s fathers were Madhava and Raghava’s classmates who had bullied and humiliated them for their lower caste and status.
Panna hears a village elder say that the same cryptic writing found on the corpses was present at the site of Nittoni’s family’s death.
Vikrant realizes that only four bodies were found at the time of Nittoni’s family’s death, meaning Madhava likely survived.
Pinto escapes, leading Vikrant to an abandoned temple where he finds the names and belongings of the murdered children.
Panna and Munna reunite with their family, while Vikrant, at Janardhan’s request, keeps Raghava’s fate a secret from Shaku.
[33] Then on 16 July 2020, they resumed their work amid pandemic at Annapurna Studios, Hyderabad, by constructing huge dense forest set.
[42][40] In addition to the original Kannada, the film was dubbed and released in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and English.
[54][55] Renuka Vyavahare of The Times of India gave the film 3 out of 5 and wrote "Vikrant Rona could evolve into a decent mystery series ahead packed with more dark adventures if the makers get rid of the unnecessary fluff.
"[57][19] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "The convoluted plot and stilted dialogues of this Kiccha Sudeep-starrer mar the experience".
[58] A critic for Bollywood Hungama rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "VIKRANT RONA fails to impress due to the poor script, direction and length".
[60] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "Vikrant Rona isn't interested in specificities.
[61] Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "Focused on creating a visually evocative setting and showcasing leading man Sudeep's cool moves, Vikrant Rona is happy to miss the wood for the trees".
[62] Deepa Gahlot of Rediff rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "The plot keeps getting weirder by the minute, and scenes leapfrog round with no control.
"[67] Soundarya Athimuthu of The Quint rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Vikrant Rona tries to be smart with its detailing in the plot".