Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Raju (Ram Charan Teja) meet by chance at a bustling market when they heroically rescue a young boy from a train wreck.  The two become instant and inseparable friends, but both men unknowingly harbor a secret from each other that will threaten their friendship.  Bheem is looking to rescue his younger sister, Malli (Twinkle Sharma) who was fraudulently bought by Catherine and Scott Buxton (Alison Doody, Ray Stevenson), leaders of the British Police Force.  Raju, meanwhile, is a member of the police with high ambitions to become a Special Officer within the ranks and is currently working on a case that will find Bheem and other members of his Gond tribe as criminals for not submitting to the Crown. 

S.S. Rajamouli directs RRR, a blockbuster work of historical fiction that sensationalizes the story of these two revolutionaries from 1920s India.  The massive film exploded across screens in both India and abroad in the Spring of 2022, and is now widely available at home via Netflix, though it is important to note that the streamer presents the Hindi-language dub instead of the original Telugu version.  Rajamouli cowrites the script with V. Vijayendra Prasad and features an epic soundtrack with bombastic musical numbers composed and arranged by M. M. Keeravani.  At 187-minutes, the film wastes no time in breaking into the action, and it never lets up, but through all the excitement it still weaves in a tale about friendship, family, and a few threads of a budding romance as well making it truly a film that has something for everyone. 

With over 40 minutes until the title card crashes onto the screen, Rajamouli first introduces us to the “stoRy.”  It is a quick sequence, but it sets the tone for the film to come as Malli is taken from her family, and her mother (Ahmareen Anjum) is brutally killed.  Buxton corrects his soldier who initially wants to execute her at gunpoint, but he has a whole prepared speech that the cost to manufacture and ship the bullet he would use is worth far more than the Gond woman’s life.  With a gnarled limb pulled from the weeds, the soldier smashes it against her head, and with that first brutal splash of blood, RRR warns audiences that this is not going to be just bright colors and unaccountable actions.  The film is not shy about its violence, but it remains incredibly stylized throughout so that it never feels too grounded or threatening, and the film is also preceded by a disclaimer that all animals are computer generated for added good measure.  In its stylization, the use of blood here is not dissimilar to the work of Quentin Tarantino who also uses the extreme exaggeration of violence to instill excitement and amusement in the audiences, with a second similarity between the two is that Tarantino is also unafraid to rewrite aspects of history in a bold way if it helps to enhance the story. 

The film quickly shifts focus to introduce the “fiRe,” personified here as Raju who serves as a police officer for the British Crown and who goes above and beyond to protect the outpost in the first of many insane combat sequences.  Not unlike some of the bolder Kungfu films, RRR is not afraid to bend the rules of physics and exaggerate the capabilities of the human body in the name of what looks cool on screen as Raju jumps into the raging mob and fights them head-on, emerging victorious, albeit a little bruised.  Passed over for a promotion, Raju is quick to volunteer for a special assignment to disband the revolutionary forces by capturing their leader and bringing him in for the Crown. 

Raju, with his marching orders in hand, Rajamouli has just one more stage to set before he can begin the story proper.  The “wateR” reacquaints us with Bheem who has a covert contingent of Gond tribesmen hiding in Dehli as they plot to rescue Malli.  Closing in on one of Bheem’s men, Lacchu (Rahul Ramakrishna), Raju is hot on his trail when a catastrophe strikes at the market and he leaps into action, aided by Bheem, to save a boy from certain death thus bringing together fire and water – not only in the character sense but also in the action as the flaming train begins to crash car by car into the river below – but this tight and fraught friendship is when RRR really begins to take off into an exciting and thrilling adventure.  Though it may be a little frustrating to wait almost an hour for the film to get started, nothing in this setup was wasted as so many of the visual motifs and nuances in the script will come back time and time again across the duration and it should be noted that there was never a slow moment in the prelude nor does it feel weighed down by having to set so much into motion. 

Part of this is because the story itself is a simple tale about resisting British colonialism, but what makes it so captivating is the magnetic chemistry between its two leads.  RRR can be boiled down to a pretty black-and-white story where the good guys can do no wrong and the bad guys are comically evil and incompetent. What allows for such a long runtime is that much of the middle section is a buddy comedy between Bheem and Raju as they bounce around the countryside with the looming question of when one will make the fatal mistake of revealing too much to the other about their past. It does not play out like an undercover drama, though – there is no room for song and dance in Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco (1997) or Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed (2006) – instead, it follows many of the highs and lows of a romantic comedy, especially with its inclusion of a wingman dynamic that finds Raju helping Bheem woo Jennifer (Olivia Morris). This plot line then opens the two up to an invitation to a party where they get to perform the breakout hit and Oscar-nominated song Naatu Naatu with Prem Rakshith’s all-encompassing choreography. This middle section is more a comedy of concealed identity than anything, that is, until, it is not when a seemingly innocent gesture from Bheem who delivers a lifesaving antidote to Raju following a snake bite gives the undercover agent an unmistakable clue linking his dear friend to the resistance threat he has been charged to disband and arrest. 

What makes Act One so fun to watch is how purely platonic Raju and Bheem’s relationship is, while still allowing the two actors to capitalize on their individual brand of masculine charm on screen. Rajamouli allows the two men to fully embrace their own identities while finding immense support from each other. The script treats them balanced in every way, and this is important not just for the action sequences, but it makes for a great bromance on screen. KK Senthil Kumar’s camera is all too eager to capture Teja, framing him as a smoldering Adonis, even late in the film when Raju is at his lowest, he always makes sure the actor looks like a glistening movie star. With that being said, it does not treat Rao Jr.’s Bheem as an oafish foil to the Raju, but rather he is the perfect encapsulation of masculinity on the other end of the spectrum. Whereas Raju looks like he just walked off the cover shoot for a romance novel, horse and all, Bheem represents a sturdy and secure masculine ideal while still having a suave too-cool attitude as he zips through the streets on his motorcycle. Together, they are both of the most enduring aspects of the old-school action hero – think Steve McQueen’s Hilts in John Sturges’ The Great Escape (1963) – but because they each encapsulate certain factors of these archetypes, RRR can tease those elements all the way out to their most extreme ends and it allows the film to be embued (read: overflowing) with twice as much the charisma.

After another explosive party with wildly extravagant combat sequences that ends with a poignant reference to how the prologue ended, RRR breaks for intermission returning with a flashback to Raju’s past as a child soldier (Varun Buddhadev) being led by his father (Ajay Devgn). Filling in Raju’s backstory adds some tragedy to the narrative as well as helps reframe and recontextualize everything we saw in Act One. It also finds the core duo mostly at odds for the latter half of the film as they embark on their respective journeys with the feeling of betrayal and loss heavy on their hearts, but because audiences have gleaned Raju’s goal of arming the people to reclaim the land, we never lose hope in the film and even when the film gets to its darkest point, we are excited to see how they will fight back. 

Act Two is a strange bit of storytelling as it finds itself tightly cyclical as the two independent arcs are spiraling back towards each other with both Bheem and Raju dealing with the consequences and emotional fallout of the betrayal. For those not on board with the style and excess of RRR, this conclusion will certainly be grating as the film pays out every little callback and detail set up in the preceding two hours; but for those who are engaged with the story, it becomes a bit of an in-joke as Rajamouli finds every possible moment to pepper his dialogue and action sequences with these moments, treating this singular film like a franchise work all on its own as he racks up these cheer-worthy easter eggs as if his final act were the umpteenth sequel already deep into the cannon. It is not until Bheem and his team of resistance fighters, down and out on their luck, meet Sita (Alia Bhatt), Raju’s fiancé, and are informed by her of Raju’s vow to infiltrate and destroy the Crown from the inside. What results is a heroic rescue mission bleeding into an impressive action sequence in the jungle that plays heavily on the fire and water imagery that represent both characters. In this way, RRR encapsulates the idea of utilizing different means to achieve a similar goal, and that by working together, all things are possible.  

Historically and politically, RRR has gotten itself into a little bit of trouble, though unnecessarily so. Detractors are quick to point out the fudging of timelines to bring these two men together in time and space, but it is a disingenuous complaint as Rajamouli has been firm from the start this was a work of historical fiction purposefully playing with the “what if…” idea to get across the message that in the fight for justice, there is more than one way to win and that all avenues can be valid, but it takes understanding from a higher level to see the value, unite, and overcome. Politically, it has been received as a negative work of propaganda, and while some of the nuances may be lost on western audiences and those unfamiliar with the history of the region, the core story is that of a nation fighting back for its identity and autonomy over an invading presence. Equating what RRR is doing to any of the pro-military films pushed out by Hollywood is to totally miss the meaning and intention of the work. Topically, it is easy to point to Top Gun: Maverick (2022) as it also coats its country-first stance in a similar amount of buttery topping as RRR and relies heavily on spectacle to conceal its nationalist themes, but the core difference is that Maverick and his team are leading an offensive strike, whereas Bheem and Raju are acting to preserve and defend their land and their culture from an invading nation. The conflict at the heart of RRR is more akin to Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) than anything, and further, it is not even the only film out of India this year to show the British getting in over their head as Karan Malhotra stages a train heist of the Crown Jewels late in Shamshera (2022). This bad faith argument is just that, a poor attempt to salve a wound on injured pride while ignoring whole cloth the role that casual xenophobia had in characterizing some of the villains across the decades-spanning James Bond franchise, or for those on the other side of the pond, the outright canonization of Chris Kyle in Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper (2014) which frames the soldier as a martyr for American values. 

When the credits play and the cast reunites for Etthara Jenda, audiences can feel an understandable mix of elation and exhaustion. RRR is excessive cinema done right: maximizing every emotional beat, framing every character as if they are the biggest movie star on the planet in every shot, and a relentless visual and auditory assault with bold colors and a blasting score that gets us leaning in towards the screen in anticipation for what wild antics we will witness next. On one hand, the tricks can be seen as a little grating if one is not onboard with the film – the slow-mo, the intermittent higher frame rate, the ever so slightly too artificial looking CGI – but it all adds to the charm and the makeup of the film as a whole, and for a blockbuster so bursting with kinetic energy and excitement, it cannot be understated how legible every sequence is; something many modern Hollywood films certainly struggle with between the drab grey color palette and the frantic quick cuts. The chemistry of the inseparable leads drives the film, and we are all too glad to be along for the ride as they sing, dance, and stunt their way into our hearts. Rajamouli makes a triumphant return to cinemas after his mounting of the legend, Baahubali (2015, 2017), and removes any doubt in the minds of domestic and international filmgoers alike that he is one of the premiere blockbuster filmmakers currently working today. RRR is a four-quadrant release through and through, and it brings a welcome bit of unity between the critical and commercial realms; two viewpoints that have seen a widening schism seemingly year after year finally coming together, like fire and water, to recognize a truly great achievement.