Media365
4 min readUpdated: Oct 9, 2026 02:32 PM IST
Reporting Live movie review: Illegal sand-mining continues to be the flavour of the season. Anil Kapoor’s ex-Armyman went up against the ruthless mafia controlling operations in the sepia-tinted hinterlands in Subedaar earlier this year. Now come Parineeti Chopra and Deven Bhojani as the intrepid reporter-camera duo from a TRP-hungry TV network (are there any other kinds?) who confront the bad guys.
The nearly two-hour long duration is spent in watching Sandhya Yadav (Parineeti Chopra) and Vinod Sharma (Deven Bhojani) tracking the act itself on the banks of a river, being threatened both outside and inside the workplace, running the gamut of supportive types and unhelpful seniors, going sleuthing in tall unfinished buildings, and other dangerous places.
This is such an interesting ensemble — Amol Palekar appears as the helpful Kaka, who predictably overcomes initial reluctance to become the conduit through which all will be revealed, along with Pitobash Tripathy as his aide — that I was hoping for a gripping investigative drama, which is what Reporting Live wants to be.
But convinced of its first-off-the-post exploration of TV newsfloors, compromised anchors, and the tentacles of the powerful digging deep into neta and babu pockets, as if no one has ever done any of it before, the film never gets out of its explanatory mode.
Reporting Live movie trailer:
This Parineeti Chopra outing coming so soon after the disappointing Shaque should have given us a chance to forget that one. But Chopra is, yet again, single-note in her never-say-die reporter avatar, even as she is to be found pushing through crowds to get that elusive ‘byte’, while standing up against bullying bosses. Deven Bhojani, who has been getting meatier roles recently, comes off better, even though a cameraperson packing a hip-flask which is to be dipped into daily comes off more as an eye-roll than anything else.
I’m tired of news gathering spaces stuffed with cliches, especially in a film which claims it is ‘based on true events’. Which reporter-and-cameraperson goes barging into a meeting of editors (Adil Hussain, Shekhar Suman) in quite this outta-my-way manner? Even redoubtable real-life reporters would flinch. A quite striking scene with these two spying on dodgy sand-diggers is rendered unbelievable by a convenient escape; a construction magnate (Nassar) shows up in person, instead of sending minions, to tell them off.
When will reporters stop being turned into on-the-ground sleuths? Yes, investigative journalists do doggedly follow a story, but hardly ever in these exaggerated filmi ways: Hussain, whom we saw last in the terrific Safed Sagar, is made to pull off a Rang de Basanti-style heist of the anchor desk, while Suman looks as if he’s all togged out to hop into to his real-life chat-show.
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There is clear evidence of research, with characters mentioning land leases, protected areas, and green tribunal. There are the occasional nice exchanges between Chopra and Bhojani and the latter’s wife, played by Prachee Shah. And then it’s right back to frail village elders, predatory businessmen and complicit media owners, telling us there’s a film here, but buried under weak writing.
Reporting Live movie cast: Parineeti Chopra, Deven Bhojani, Amol Palekar, Adil Hussain, Shekhar Suman, Pitobash Tripathy, Prachee Shah Pandya, Nasser, Sameer Kochchar, Saswata Chatterjee, Geeta Agrawal Sharma
Reporting Live movie director: Dhruv Tripathi
Reporting Live movie rating: 1.5 stars
