RRR, or Rise Roar Revolt, came out of nowhere. Which is odd, as it’s been around for years! This movie started out back in 2018 and landed on Netflix a week ago to very little fanfare. I have crap like Kissing Booth shoved down my throat every day, even though I have down voted it. But RRR? Nope. It wasn’t displayed in ‘Top Ten films’ or even ‘new content’. I had to search for it. Was it worth it? Yes. Yes it fing was!
The trailer for RRR made me chuckle. Obviously, it was very Indian, because it’s an Indian movie… In fact, it’s one of the biggest Indian movies of all time. But what I mean here is that it is stylistically Indian… And also not. It’s a superb marriage of Indian cinema, dance and music routines, and high action that you would see in a Western centric, Marvel-like movie.
Netflix offers us the Hindi version of the movie, not the Telugu, which the main actors spoke while filming. In fact the main actors all had to dub their parts into 4 different languages! I think this is a pity, you can tell that they are dubbing which distracted me at first. For non-native speakers you’d think they’d give us the original with English subtitles.
N. T. Rama Rao Jr. is Komaram Bheem, a tribal leader whose mission is to return a kidnapped girl. Ram Charan is Alluri Sitarama Raju, a man with a tash that is superb. He’s a policeman who has a hidden mission that I won’t spoil. They are both fantastic. I think to many, myself included, the overt ‘friendship’ on display might trigger feelings of a more homoerotic nature.
I mean, there’s a wooing song! One has to note that in India it’s very common for men to hold each others hands purely as friends. Indeed, homophobia is rather prolific in the country.
Both of them deserve credit for getting their superhero bodies too. Apparently it took like 18 months to get this ripped.
Story
What is the story then? Well:
A tale of two legendary revolutionaries and their journey far away from home. After their journey they return home to start fighting back against British colonialists in the 1920s.
Wiki
It’s a pretty straightforward story that polarises it’s heroes and baddies. In fact, the arseholes of the film, the British, are so over the top I laughed at times. But it’s done in a glorious manner. The evil British Governor is played Ray Stevenson as Governor Scott Buxton, and you can see he had fun! He mad as all hell, and only surpassed by his wife Catherine. Who, at one points says ‘there should be more blood. Why isn’t there more blood!?’ Shakespeare, sit down.
The movie is an action blast with scenes that I’ve never seen before. It’s fun. And you need that with a runtime of over 3 hours! I never felt bored. In fact, I watched this till 2am in the morning! You are constantly in awe from what our action bros are up to. Whether that’s swinging under a bridge to save a kid, to fighting tigers, you are never bored. In fact I think my one mate Wayne, who hates everything fun, would enjoy it…
There are a couple of Bollywood dance routines, which work perfectly during particularly heavy moments. My favourite was a dance-off between our Indian heroes, and a poncy-looking Brit, whose skin is more reflective than my ginger-cursed self. The music is a perfect fit for the movie too, with some really lovely songs.
RR is also quite harsh. It has some brutal violent moments. One is in the trailer actually. A mother is bashed in the head by a huge log. The definitely don’t shy away from violence. A flogging had me wincing, as did a few other moments where women are beaten brutally.
The down
I’ve been thinking about the negatives of the movie. And I can’t think of many that I don’t willingly accept of western movies. RRR is extremely patriotic, painting all but one Brit as homicidal maniacs. Which is probably fair to be honest. There is also not much leg work when it comes to the actual personalities of our heroes. They are more caricatures of themes than actual people, which is fine in a movie like this.
Verdict
RRR really needs a bit more of a push from Netflix. Having it in their library, and not splashing it across every action field, is a bloody tragedy. It deserves your watching. In fact, I’ll probably watch it again! I give RRR a…
9/10
All the series and all the movies couldn't put society back together again.