RRR (2022)

This is the first Indian movie I've seen at my mom's suggestion; she'd read good things about it. Perhaps the strangest thing about it is the title. In the opening sequence, the letters expand to "Rise Roar Revolt," but it started as a working title based on initials of the director (S.S. Rajamouli) and leads (N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan). I went in knowing little more than its 185-minute runtime, as Netflix doesn't describe the plot. Nor does it offer audio in the original Telugu for some reason; I settled for Hindi.

In 1920, owing to a language barrier, the Hindu Gond tribe unwittingly sells preteen Malli (Twinkle Sharma) into slavery as a henna artist in the Delhi mansion of Governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson), who won't sell her back. Malli's adult brother figure, Komaram Bheem (Rao), assumes the alias of Muslim "Akhtar" and plots to bust her out. He befriends Rama Raju (Charan), an undercover cop assigned to arrest the mystery man alleged to be plotting against Buxton. Neither friend has the slightest suspicion at first....

I later learned that Bheem and Raju were actual people in history, but they're probably the only ones on screen. Even if you don't know that Rajamouli admitted up front to relying on imagination rather than fact, it's soon obvious that the film takes a lot of liberties, because both men seem to have taken a super serum. They're the two biggest badasses I've ever seen in Indian cinema. They do get badly hurt and lose fights sometimes, but I eventually stopped worrying that either would die.

The other major sign of liberties, apart from the typical Indian musical numbers, is in the moralizing. Every Englishman with any lines is an openly racist, elitist brute who doesn't need much provocation to beat or kill Indians of any age or gender, though Buxton cautions that they're not worth the price of imported bullets. Many of the Englishwomen seem OK -- Buxton's niece, Jenny (Olivia Morris), even proves a worthy love interest for Bheem -- but Buxton's wife, Catherine (Alison Doody), is the most sadistic character of all. Because of this, the designated heroes have no qualms against killing hundreds of Brits and native "traitors." Bheem even claims to have done "nothing wrong" when his attempt to rescue Malli involves releasing tigers and other deadly animals at a gala. Mind you, he doesn't want everyone at the gala to die; he's just trusting his luck. But considering the heroes' physical accuracy rate of 100%, maybe that was never in question.

The animals, BTW, are all CG. The screen says so in advance, but it's pretty obvious. Still, I hadn't expected a Tollywood studio to come that close to the state of the art. I'm not sure I'd even seen CG in an Indian flick before.

The only nuance I could detect is in Raju. He's a double agent, not a sellout (this isn't a spoiler if you know his place in history), but he has trouble judging how far to go in cultivating his image of loyalty and usefulness to authorities. Beyond that, there is zero subtlety, only flamboyance. The apparent motto is "Go big or go home."

Lack of subtlety does not mean lack of artistry or complexity. Sometimes I got lost for a moment, as with Raju's flashbacks. Sometimes the cinematography is breathtaking. But like Children of Men, it alternates between rather high art and, well, a different kind of art. Officially unrated, it merits an R (in triplicate?) in the U.S. for gore. Between that and the ethically problematic historical fanfiction, I was unsurprised to confirm the cited influence of Quentin Tarantino's work, specifically Inglourious Basterds, on Rajamouli.

RRR is indeed entertaining and worth my time. I just hope it doesn't inspire RL violence against a vast demographic.