rrr movie review in english essay

The Telugu language Indian action epic “RRR” (short for “Rise Roar Revolt”) has returned to US theaters for an exceptional one-night-only engagement on June 1st following its initial theatrical release. Some hindsight has made it easy to guess why writer/director S.S. Rajamouli has only now broken through to Western audiences with “RRR” despite his consistent box office success. Rajamouli’s latest is an anti-colonial fable and buddy drama about the imaginary combo of two real-life freedom fighters, Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri Sitarama Raju ( Ram Charan ). “RRR” is also a fine showcase for Rajamouli’s characteristic focus on maximalist action choreography, overwhelming stuntwork and pyrotechnics, and sophisticated computer graphics.  

By the time he made “RRR,” Rajamouli had already developed his brand of Nationalistic self-mythologizing with some help from recurring collaborators like regular story writer (and biological father) Vijayendra Prasad and both co-leads, who previously starred in Rajamouli’s “Yamadonga” and “Magadheera,” respectively.

Set in and around Delhi in 1920, “RRR” pointedly lacks historical context so that Rajamouli and his team can transform a straight-forward rescue mission into a rallying cry for reunification and also cathartic violence. Bheem, the avenging “shepherd” of the Adivasian Gond tribe, visits Delhi to track down Malli ( Twinkle Sharma ), an innocent pre-teen who’s kidnapped from her Gondian mother by the cartoonishly evil British Governor Scott ( Ray Stevenson ) and his sadistic wife Cathy ( Alison Doody ).

Raju, a peerless Colonial police officer, befriends Bheem without realizing that they’re at cross purposes: Bheem wants to break into Scott’s fortress-like quarters to rescue Maali while Raju wants to catch the unknown “tribal” that Scott’s lackey Edward ( Edward Sonnenblick ) fears might be lurking about. Raju and Bheem immediately bond after they save an unrelated child from being crushed by a runaway train, as clear a sign as any of Rajamouli’s love for Cecil B. DeMille-style melodrama. (“Ben Hur” is an acknowledged influence for Rajamouli, as are the action/period dramas of fellow DeMille-ian Mel Gibson ).

It’s also fitting that “RRR” is Rajamouli’s big breakthrough since it’s inevitably about Bheem as an inspiring symbol of quasi-traditional, boundary-trampling patriotism. Rajamouli has gotten quite good at incorporating potentially alienating elements, like his cheap-seats love of grisly violence and brash sloganeering, into his propulsive, inventive, and visually assured fight scenes and dance numbers.

Rajamouli has also already perfected the way he works with and uses his actors as part of his shock-and-awe style of melodrama. Rama Rao is ideally cast as the naively sweet-natured Bheem, whose messianic qualities are also effectively high-lit in a handful of rousing set pieces, like when a bare-chested Bheem wrestles a tiger into submission. Rama Rao’s performance isn’t the main thing, but it is the emblematic inspiration that, along with a “Passion of the Christ”-worthy scourging, understandably leads an assembly of Indian nationals to attack Scott and his bloodthirsty hambone wife in a later scene.

Likewise, Charan’s steely-eyed performance in “RRR” is limited, but strong enough to be credibly superhuman. Rajamouli knows exactly how to capture his best sides, as in an astounding opening action scene where Raju descends into a rioting mob just to subdue and apprehend one particular dissident. Rao and Charan’s bro-mantic chemistry and syncopated physicality have already made a viral success of the movie’s splashy “Naatu Naatu” musical number, but that scene’s infectiously joyful presentation is supra-human by design.

The spirit of the individual matters more than any single person in Rajamouli’s movies and “RRR” is a perfect expression of that notion. It’s also a decent reflection of Rajamouli’s fame, which Film Companion South ’s Sagar Tetali keenly suggests is “the triumph of directorial ambition over the actor-star—the triumph of a brand of storytelling over the South Indian star image.”

With “RRR,” Rajamouli repeats his preference for one nation under populist ubermenschen. Both Bheem and Raju are extraordinary men because they are, at heart, aspirational expressions of the people’s will. Their lives, their loved ones, and their relationships are all of secondary importance—check out Bollywood star Ajay Devgn ’s explosive cameo!—so it makes sense that the cast’s images and performances are also blown up to James Cameron-sized proportions.

Like Cameron, Rajamouli has earned a reputation for pushing the limits of industrialized pop cinema. In that sense, “RRR” feels simultaneously personal and gargantuan in scope. Film Comment ’s R. Emmet Sweeney is right to caution viewers regarding the towering streak of “Hindu-centric” Nationalism and characterizations at the heart of Rajamouli’s “Pan-Indian address.” Sweeney is also right to hail Rajamouli’s dazzling “technical innovation.” It’s not every day that a new Indian movie—which are typically not advertised to Western viewers beyond indigenous language speakers, and therefore largely ignored by Western outlets—is presented as an event to American theatergoers. Attend or miss out.

Available in theaters tonight, June 1st, and also streaming on Netflix.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

• N.T. Rama Rao Jr. as Komaram Bheem
• Ram Charan as Alluri Sitarama Raju
• Alia Bhatt as Sita
• Ajay Devgn as Venkata Rama Raju
• Ray Stevenson as Scott Buxton
• Alison Doody as Cassandra Buxton
• Olivia Morris as Jennifer 'Jenny' Buxton
• Samuthirakani as Venkateshwarulu
• Shriya Saran as Sarojini
• Chatrapathi Sekhar as Jangu
• Makrand Deshpande as Peddanna

Cinematographer

• K.K. Senthil Kumar
• M.M. Keeravaani
• S. S. Rajamouli
• Sreekar Prasad
• S.S. Rajamouli

Writer (story)

• Vijayendra Prasad

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‘RRR’ Review: A Hero (or Two) Shall Rise

Scenes of glorious excess make the screen hum with energy in S.S. Rajamouli’s action epic set in British colonial India.

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By Nicolas Rapold

It’s not long in “RRR” before a tiger and a wolf collide midair during a brawl with one of the film’s two musclebound heroes. Scenes of glorious excess make the screen hum with energy in the latest feature from S.S. Rajamouli, the director of the “Baahubali” blockbusters.

Set in 1920s India before independence, “RRR” pairs two of the country’s biggest stars, N.T. Rama Rao Jr. (known as “Jr. NTR”) and Ram Charan, as superfriends from either side of a bloody colonial divide. A goofily gallant Jr. NTR plays Bheem, a warrior from the Gond tribe, while Charan smolders as Ram, a fearsome police officer who is underestimated by his white superiors. (The characters are inspired by two rebel heroes from the era, Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju.)

Bheem journeys to Delhi to rescue a Gond girl enslaved by the British governor and his wife, a couple of sadists. Ram has orders to identify and capture Bheem by going undercover with revolutionaries. Instead, the men unwittingly make fast friends when they save a child stranded on a river that’s on fire. (As one does.)

But their missions get inevitably entangled, and Rajamouli (who collaborated on the story with his screenwriter father, Vijayendra Prasad), stirs in an aw-shucks courtship between Bheem and the governor’s not-racist niece (Olivia Morris).

Rajamouli shoots the film’s action with hallucinogenic fervor, supercharging scenes with a shimmering brand of extended slow-motion and C.G.I. that feels less “generated” than unleashed. Here-to-there plot filler in “RRR” is instantly forgiven with each wild set-piece: Ram furiously tunneling through a hundred-strong mob outside his garrison, or the rumbling dance-off (the “Naatu Naatu” musical number) where Bheem and Ram giddily exhaust the British cads and delight the ladies.

The rousing anticolonialist battle royal concludes with one final fist-pump: an end-credit song celebrating political figures from across India.

RRR Rated PG-13 for violent sequences, some intense language and general mayhem. With subtitles. Running time: 3 hours 7 minutes. In theaters.

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If you haven't been back to the movies yet, Indian epic 'RRR' is the reason to go

John Powers

Ram Charan stars in RRR, an action-packed bromance set in India in the 1920s. Raftar Creations hide caption

Ram Charan stars in RRR, an action-packed bromance set in India in the 1920s.

If you're over the age of, say, 40, you will surely remember the 1975 cult phenomenon The Rocky Horror Picture Show . Weekend after weekend, year after year, decade after decade, audiences turned up at theaters — often dressed in corsets, fishnets and other costumes — to shriek out lines ahead of the characters and sing along with the songs.

I've never seen anything like it — until now. A few nights ago, I went to a packed screening of RRR , an epic action-picture bromance from India. The screening had 900 people — some of whom had already seen the film 10 times — clapping and dancing from the opening credits.

Made by box-office titan S.S. Rajamouli, RRR induces such unabashed giddiness in its audience that Hollywood is witnessing a push to get it nominated for the Oscars. Forget Best International Feature Film, folks are talking Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor. And having seen RRR twice myself, I'm part of the bandwagon.

Pop Culture Happy Hour

'rrr' is an interrrnational phenomenon.

Set during the British Raj in the 1920s, the movie tells the story of two heroes with impressive physiques and super-charged abilities. The tightly wound Ram — played by Ram Charan — works for the British as a crack military officer who we see quash a mass Indian uprising single-handed. His tiger-hunting counterpart, Bheem, played by N.T. Rama Rao, Jr., is a tribal villager who has come in disguise to Delhi to reclaim a young girl from his village who has been capriciously snatched by the evil wife of the evil British governor.

Ram and Bheem meet heroically while working in tandem to save a child from a train crashing into a river. Kindred in their bravery, they instantly become fast friends. But they don't know one important thing. While Bheem secretly opposes the governor, Ram is secretly working for him. They're bound for a head-on collision.

RRR — the title stands for Rise Roar Revolt — is populist filmmaking. Its emotions are simple, its anti-colonial politics broad. Rajamouli makes the British rulers of India even worse than they actually were, and they were mighty bad. But his mega-star lead actors play their roles with such ardent conviction that we don't merely believe in Ram and Bheem's friendship, we're moved by it. Rajamouli unfolds the many twists and turns of their story with such confidently rampaging energy that, by comparison, most Hollywood blockbusters feel anemic.

I'm normally bored by action sequences, but from the opening riot to the assault on the governor's mansion to the big prison escape — during which Ram rides atop Bheem's shoulders with guns ablazing — RRR contains more exciting action scenes than all the Marvel movies put together. Indeed, there's a slow-motion shot right before the intermission that is one of the most jaw dropping moments in the history of cinema. Just as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Matrix offered American viewers a new vision of action, so RRR possesses a delirious inventiveness and originality that audiences will love. And I haven't even mentioned the marvelous "Naatu Naatu" song-and-dance sequence that recalls the dance-off between the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story , but is vastly more alive.

You can currently see RRR on Netflix, and it's a good enough movie that you'll enjoy it. But if you can — and I'd urge local theaters to bring it back — you should see it on a big screen. For two reasons. First, Rajamouli is in love with the sheer bigness that makes movies so much grander than TV. Bursting with fights, rescues, wild animals, surging crowds, sadistic monsters, larger-than-life showdowns and mythic transformations, RRR is not a movie that leaves you asking for more.

Indeed, in these days when the box-office is way down, movie chains are wobbling, and experts wonder whether the movies will even survive, RRR makes the case for returning to theaters. It reminds us that movies are always more thrilling when they're part of a collective experience, when you can share the excitement with the people around you. That excitement is electric when you watch RRR . You may well leave the theater humming the catchy tune, "Naatu Naatu."

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‘rrr’ review: s.s. rajamouli’s glorious indian action spectacle.

This Telugu-language action-adventure epic, available on Netflix, has become a worldwide sensation.

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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“Delirious” is the word to describe S.S. Rajamouli’s Indian action-adventure film that has become a worldwide phenomenon both in theaters and on Netflix since its summer release.

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Although the central characters are based on real-life historical figures, RRR (the title stands for “Rise, Roar, Revolt”) is strictly fictional, as one of the most extensive opening disclaimers ever seen onscreen takes pain to emphasize. (We’re also assured that all of the animals seen in the film, and there are plenty, are strictly CGI. Which is definitely a good thing for them.)

We’re introduced to the lead characters in two bravura action sequences before the opening credits, which don’t appear until some 40 minutes into the film. Ramo Rao Jr. plays Bheem, a burly member of the Gond tribe who attempts to trap a wolf only to come into hand-to-paw combat with a rampaging tiger, whom he manages to subdue through a combination of cunning and superhuman strength. Charan plays Raju, a seemingly superhuman Indian member of the British police who, when first seen, dives into a raging mob of what seems like thousands of rioting Indians to subdue a criminal and somehow manages to fight all of them off successfully.

When a little girl from his tribe is abducted by an evil British governor (Ray Stevenson, leaning heavily into his cartoonish role) who regards Indians as “brown rubbish,” and his equally wicked wife (Alison Doody, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ), Bheem embarks for Delhi on a rescue mission. There he encounters Raju in an action-movie version of a “meet cute,” the pair making their acquaintance via a daring joint rescue of a boy from a burning river in a sequence that rivals anything James Cameron or Steven Spielberg has ever devised.

And, of course, there are musical numbers, including the instant classic “Naatu Naatu,” in which Raju and Bheem engage in a frenetically athletic dance-off with rhythm-challenged Brits that would have made MGM’s Arthur Freed proud. (I watched the film on Netflix, and can only imagine the hysteria the scene must have induced in theaters.)

Director Rajamouli, who in just seven years is already responsible for three of India’s highest-grossing films of all time, displays his obvious love of popular cinema in every wildly colorful, overstuffed frame. No matter that the CGI or aerial wire work is sometimes all too obvious, or that the frequent use of slow-motion borders on parody. It’s all presented in such visually dazzling fashion that your eyes are fully satisfied before your brain can make any objections.

And the two endlessly charismatic lead actors display such dynamic physicality in their hyper-muscular performances that they fairly burst from the screen. Their characters provide the most evocative screen bromance since Butch and Sundance.  

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RRR Movie Review: A Celebration Of Outrageous Ideas That Mostly Works

Cast: Junior NTR, Ram Charan, Alia Bhatt

Director: S.S. Rajamouli

A group of men belonging to the Gond tribe in Adilabad are planning to attack the palace of a British general in Delhi. On the British side, there are police officers, guns, ammunition, and a hundred other items that could count as weapons.

And on the side of the men of the tribes led by Komaram Bheem (NTR Jr) all they have is a truck and a few scrawny men who believe in Bheem. They are also far from home and relatively cornered alone in an unfamiliar part of the world. You begin to wonder how they will attack without getting caught. Surely Bheem is not so naïve that he can't figure out he is going to get caught if he charges at the palace. Or is Rajamouli going to cater to fans and probably have NTR Jr bulldoze his way through the crowd?

And then the film reveals Bheem's real plan with the massiest of mass entries of NTR Jr. It's outrageous. It's stunning. It's hair raising. It's full of conviction and frankly makes you think what else could these men have done but this. And this is not some surprise or convenient twist of the screenplay for the sake of a goosebumps moment for NTR Jr and his fans. Rajamouli has planted clues and hints so that this pre-interval sequence becomes a stunning set piece for Bheem and his men. And because they are such underdogs at this point you can't help but cheer for them and applaud the audacity of the idea.

It's outrageous but it's fun. 

RRR starring Ram Charan and NTR Jr is a series of such equally outrageous ideas from the mind of Rajamouli. Take the premise and story. There are a couple of years of history that are missing on Telugu revolutionaries Alluri Sitaramaraju and Komaram Bheem. 

And Rajamouli simply asks what if they met? What if he narrated the story of how they impacted each other? What if he told the story his way? This historical fan fiction idea itself sounds so out there and implausible that Rajamouli is not just happy if they shared a cup of tea at a roadside stall. He wants them to fight together, against each other, atop each other, engage in a dance battle with Britishers, and ultimately save each other and give each other the purpose that defined their later lives. 

On top of the historical baggage of the two characters is the meta baggage of his leading men. Rajamouli wants to bring together two stars belonging to the two biggest families in the Telugu film industry which seems a mean feat considering that the families have had been political rivals, film rivals, and even their fans have been rivals leading to violence. 

Additionally, Rajamouli is not content just bringing two stars to be the two versions of the same as multi-starrer films do when they want to play safe and make sure neither leading actor is shortchanged. He wants them to have different emotional arcs, he wants them to be two full characters rather than two stars looking for equal footing on screen.

He also does not want to play it safe and simple as seen in other multi-starrer films such as Seethamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu or Gopala Gopala or Deva Das. These films either eliminated any elements of masala or had a clear hierarchy of stars.

To use a Baahubali-an metaphor Rajamouli wants to take the bull of masala films by its horns and make a proper multi-starrer that results in a great theatrical experience. 

And on paper, all of RRR's ideas work and they mostly translate on screen. 

Let's look at what works first. 

Rajamouli is interested in showing dualities through his films and maybe for the first time you see such literal interpretations of these dualities. Ram Charan and NTR Jr. Fire and Water. Patriotism and Personal love. Orange and Blue. Wild and Civilised. Utilitarian and Deontological. Maybe even Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. 

I was worried before watching the film that these would be ornamental and shallow ideas which might not have any emotional depth. But I was wrong on this one. You just need one example to understand why Rajamouli has covered his emotional bases.

There's a stretch in the second half and I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I'll be cryptic about it. A character is going through immense pain and this character is singing a song to console themselves. On the surface, it's about this character healing and this character spreading the message of patriotism through their song to others.

But the camera lingers on the one inflicting the pain. And the way their world and ideology begin to crumble. The character inflicting the pain has always assumed that weapons mean guns. And for the first time, this character sees that a weapon need not be a gun. It could be anything. Fists, legs, and even a song. And the camera shows fists punching the others inflicting pain, legs stepping on barbed wire to break fences, and then it lingers on to the character experiencing change. 

This is the film's best emotional sequence and probably the most important turning point within the larger journey of the film. 

And it is here that you get why Rajamouli is so obsessed with dualities and the story that he chose to tell. This scene tells you why the potential intertwining histories of two of the most celebrated figures in Telugu culture is so interesting to Rajamouli. It isn't just about bringing two big stars to act in a film or the potential box office numbers or even the chance to execute some outlandish and some downright silly ideas. 

It is also here that MM Keeravani, the music director, is in supreme form and you wonder how someone manages to make you think the music is mediocre before the release of a film and after viewing it you can't help but hum his songs. Komaram Bheemudo sung by Kaala Bhairava haunts you even after you leave the hall. 

Similarly, Rajamouli's story is not fully convincing as to how these Ramaraju and Bheem become such good friends suddenly. If the film was on mute it would have felt rushed but Keeravani and editor Sreekar Prasad save the screenplay with the way the song Dosti is pieced together audio-visually. Of course, NTR Jr and Ram Charan are great but it needed something more and the music director and editor land the bond between the principal protagonists. Other songs like Naatu Naatu and the soft hymns that are used to elevate a mass scene are prime Keeravani territory and there are barely any blunders he makes in those. 

It's also to Rajamouli's credit that he's extracted such fine performances from all his actors. It takes a special kind of film where you walk out thinking Alia Bhatt might have been the weakest link and that's not her fault because it has more to do with dubbing and her character length and the various times the screenplay uses her character Seeta as a crutch. I'll get to that later. 

Everyone has always known that NTR Jr is a great actor but somehow one could never name one film where he acted well throughout. There were scenes and stretches where he exhibited the full range of his acting prowess but there is no one film where it felt like his full potential was used. And finally, that film has come. In terms of histrionics which he always puts in fifth gear has finally mellowed in the hands of Rajamouli and he has toned it down by using NTR Jr's eyes more than his voice. There's a scene where he hears the voice of someone he's been looking for, for the first time in ages and his face lights up but it also panics because of the consequences of what it might mean for him and the other character if they recognize each other. He captures innocence and naïveté and the feeling of being wronged without resorting to melodrama like he usually does. 

Similarly, Ram Charan who had dispelled myths about his acting capabilities with Rangasthalam, gets a stoic character with a tragic past. There's a certain woodenness and sullenness to his Ramaraju. But for the first time the woodenness of his face works because of his acting and not because he can't. Early on in the film, he charges at a wrongdoer who broke a law. He's getting beaten up by a mob. And he's beating them up too. But there is this look of masochistic glee where the harder he gets hit the more determined he seems. And the pain passes onto the lawbreaker who thinks he's free. Unlike Bheem, Ramaraju has a more complex and layered character which is not an easy fan favourite. He does questionable things, his emotions are constantly in check, and his purpose is mysterious and broad. It is to Ram Charan's credit that he still manages to retain the audience's sympathy and empathy against an NTR Jr who is not only in sublime form but also has the more crowd-pleasing character.

But in this quest for a duality that isn't just plainly about giving each actor even character graphs and massy moments, Rajamouli seems to have taken lightly the one screenwriting principle that he has maintained throughout his career i.e. creating villains who seem more powerful than the hero(es).

But Ray Stevenson's General Scott and to an extent Alisson Dhody's Lady Scott are the weakest villains in Rajamouli's filmography. It's not just enough that they have an army of soldiers at their disposal or that they are racists and have no feelings about uprooting children from their homes. Those are clichés and you expect better and bigger from a filmmaker of Rajamouli's stature. 

This film needed its Gabbar Singh or at least a version of Helmut Zemo from Avengers: Civil War. Because once Bheem achieves his goals and Ramaraju goes through what he must, the third act of the film feels like an extension only to have some fan-pleasing set pieces. The set pieces are whistle-worthy for sure but they don't carry the same emotional weight as the earlier portions of the films did.

All of this is made apparent by two screenplay choices that Rajmouli is forced to make. The first is that all of Seeta's entries occur where convenient and depend on us believing in coincidences that bend the rules of Rajamouli's universe. We cut to one of her scenes in the first half to make us understand the motives of Ramaraju but it doesn't feel organic. Similarly, when she does enter in the third act it feels too convenient. But again, the premise of this sequence is great. It's an inversion of Hanuman going to save Sita and Rajamouli never makes a poor allusion to mythology. But he has created a poor villain which also leads him towards his second questionable screenplay choice. 

This involves the flashback of Ramaraju. Given where it is currently it feels like the journey expected of an audience is to go from "Why is he behaving like a villain?" to "Oh! That's why he was like that". Wouldn't it have been better to keep it upfront so the conflict between Ram and Bheem feels more like a tragedy that the audience cannot stop? But then again if Rajamouli does that then that will cause a bloated first half which leaves barely any drama for the second. 

I understand it's hard to create a more macho villain than the combination of Ramcharan and NTR Jr playing Ramaraju and Bheem but Lady Scott with all her venom seemed a more promising villain than General Scott. A little more bravery on this front would have made for a strong third act and not having the audience feel like the film ended abruptly.

But you never walk out of the theatre feeling like you've been shortchanged for the cash you paid. The questions that linger are more in the zone of what could have been an epic story is now reduced to an epic theatrical experience. And there is nothing wrong with that either, but because of the bar Rajamouli has set for himself you want to discuss and dissect each story and you want it to linger in your mind years later. Now what lingers is how you felt when watching the outrageous set pieces.

And they were goosebumps raising, whiste-worthy, crazy, insane. Did I say outrageous?

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Epic blockbuster studies colonialism, has brutal violence.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that RRR is a hugely entertaining Indian blockbuster with violent scenes throughout and some racist language. The central theme is that of an uprising, standing up and showing courage in the face of tyrannical rule. Set in 1920s colonial India, Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri…

Why Age 16+?

The uprising at the core of the film is very violent. There are brawls and bysta

Language used includes "bastard" and "wanker." Derogatory language used toward t

Characters are seen smoking cigars. At a party, characters are seen drinking alc

Any Positive Content?

Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju are incredibly courageous in the face of

The movie does promote the idea that you match violence with violence. But it al

The film is set in India and the majority of the cast are native to the country,

Violence & Scariness

The uprising at the core of the film is very violent. There are brawls and bystanders are hit over the head with rocks and bats. Several brutal deaths. The cracking of bones and bloody faces. Women and children get caught up in the crossfire, being shot and even abducted. There are many explosions and a multitude of weaponry including crossbows, arrows, and cannons. Characters are tortured for information, and are whipped in front of the public as punishment. There are fights between wild animals and humans, the former shot at, the latter mauled. The colonialists beat up helpless Indians, and refuse to use bullets as they are too expensive, killing innocent people using brute force, such as being hit over the head with a branch.

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Language used includes "bastard" and "wanker." Derogatory language used toward the Indians include them being called "brown buggers," "filth," "rats," and "monkeys."

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Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters are seen smoking cigars. At a party, characters are seen drinking alcohol.

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Positive Role Models

Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju are incredibly courageous in the face of prejudice and evil. They both realize that teamwork and putting aside their differences will help their cause.

Positive Messages

The movie does promote the idea that you match violence with violence. But it also shows the strength in community and teamwork.

Diverse Representations

The film is set in India and the majority of the cast are native to the country, including the heroes of the piece. The film is very much male-led however, with few female roles of any real note.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that RRR is a hugely entertaining Indian blockbuster with violent scenes throughout and some racist language. The central theme is that of an uprising, standing up and showing courage in the face of tyrannical rule. Set in 1920s colonial India, Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan Teja) begin as enemies but realize that in order to defeat the British they must join forces. The uprising itself is incredibly violent, but cinematic in its execution. There are fights between humans and wild tigers, with animals being killed and humans mauled. There are also countless deaths -- including innocent women and children -- some of which are brutal and graphic. Characters are also tortured and whipped. There is some use of "bastard" and "wanker," as well as racist language. Characters are referred to as animals and "brown buggers." This Indian production has a diverse cast -- both Telugu and English are spoken -- though it's fair to say the majority of characters, and the heroes of the piece, are men. It has a runtime of over three hours. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (4)
• Kids say (8)

Based on 4 parent reviews

BLOODY AMAZING

What's the story.

RRR is a fictitious story about real events, focusing in on the colonialism of India at the hands of the British. Set in the 1920s, when a young girl is abducted, and her mother callously murdered, family member Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) seeks vengeance against the perpetrators, though he is coming up against a brutal, tyrannical regime. What doesn't help, is that fellow countryman Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan Teja) is working for the enemy, and he himself proves an indestructible force.

Is It Any Good?

This Indian action-drama offers viewers about as much fun as you can have with a movie. RRR is pure cinema, at times completely over-the-top and ridiculous, but remaining grounded by its historical context. The credit must go to director S.S. Rajamouli for this ambitious undertaking. He truly is a master of his craft, with some spellbinding sequences -- scenes that you may say out loud in the planning stage, but to actually bring them to life is another matter. He may not have the budget of a major Hollywood production, but it matters little such is the strength in storytelling, and his ability to create such epic set-pieces. RRR combines fantasy with realism in a striking way, and while the film tells an important tale, above anything else, it's just purely, and utterly entertaining.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in RRR . How did it make you feel? Did it add to the story? Do some types of media violence have different impact than others?

The movie is set in the 1920s during colonial India. What do you know about this period? Why is it important to look back on the past? What can we learn from it?

Discuss some of the racist language used. What purpose did it serve the story? How did it make you feel hearing these things in the film?

The movie has very little female representation . Did you find this problematic? Why, or why not?

The film is a fictitious account of real events. What other movies have you seen that has taken this approach?

Movie Details

• In theaters : March 25, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : May 20, 2022
• Cast : N.T. Rama Rao Jr. , Ram Charan Teja , Alia Bhatt
• Director : S.S. Rajamouli
• Inclusion Information : Indian/South Asian actors, Female actors
• Studio : Variance Films
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : Friendship , History , Wild Animals
• Character Strengths : Courage , Perseverance , Teamwork
• Run time : 187 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Award : Golden Globe - Golden Globe Award Winner
• Last updated : June 20, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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The Netflix Hit “RRR” Is a Political Screed, an Action Bonanza, and an Exhilarating Musical

When it comes to cinematic propaganda, blatant is better than insidious. Overt advocacy has the virtue of candor and the vigor of fervent emotion. A movie such as “ Top Gun: Maverick ” hides its messages under the guise of unexceptionable realities, whereas another new, high-energy, political action spectacle, the Indian film “RRR” (which was released theatrically in March and is now streaming on Netflix, where it’s in the top five), makes its statements explicit. It thrusts its imaginative artistry thrillingly and gleefully to the fore.

“RRR”—the title stands for “Rise Roar Revolt”—turns history into legend by way of heightened visual rhetoric. It’s based very loosely on the real-life stories of two Indian revolutionaries of the early twentieth century, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, who contested the oppressions of British colonial power. There’s no record of their having met, let alone joining forces. The director, S. S. Rajamouli —who also wrote the screenplay, based on a story by V. Vijayendra Prasad (his father)—derives a magnificent outpouring of creative energy from the inspiring fantasy of their volatile connection. (The movie’s original language is Telugu; the version shown on Netflix is dubbed into Hindi.)

On a motor trip through the Indian countryside, Catherine Buxton (Alison Doody), the high-handed wife of the British colonial governor, buys an Indian girl named Malli (Twinkle Sharma) as one might buy a pet. The governor’s party carts the child away over the protests of her mother, Loki (Ahmareen Anjum), who is brutalized by British guards. Malli is from the Gond tribe, which is said to hold fast together, and its so-called shepherd, Bheem (N. T. Rama Rao, Jr.), a fierce warrior, heads to Delhi to find her, disguising himself as a Muslim mechanic named Akhtar. The British governor, Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson), is warned by an Indian police officer about the shepherd and his ferocity; Buxton orders his officers to find and capture the shepherd. One of his Indian police officers, Raju (Ram Charan), volunteers for the mission, planning to infiltrate the city’s revolutionary Indian circles. In Delhi, two Indian strangers see a boy drowning in the river and team up to rescue him; the two men, Raju and “Akhtar,” become fast friends. Raju is unaware that Akhtar is the warrior he’s looking for, and Akhtar is unaware that Raju works for the man whose household he aims to raid. The drama of their secrets, and the circuitous path of their ultimate collaboration (it’s no spoiler), involve scenes of moral and emotional horror that are redeemed in the high purpose of their historic mission.

The similarity in tone to other Indian action films is matched by what it shares with Hollywood blockbusters, too. The drama is built around action, stints on character, features very little dialogue that doesn’t advance the plot, and offers neither psychology nor history nor social context to enrich the historical framework. It’s a movie of shortcuts and elisions no less relentless than those of American superhero or superstar vehicles, but Rajamouli is an artist of a distinctive temperament and talent. He spotlights the halo of legend in an extended scene that introduces Raju, at a prison where Indian people are storming the gates to free a prisoner. There, Raju takes on the entire surging crowd by way of impossible acrobatics and eruptive martial artistry (highlighted by a madly rotating camera) that plays like a live-action cartoon. The element of fantasy is intensified by a sequence of Bheem’s rigorous self-imposed training, which involves single-handed battle with a wolf and a tiger.

There’s an overt element of exaggeration that bends the story into the substance and the tone of legend—the effect is of an onscreen tall tale. It’s a film of giddy, exhilarating hyperbole in which physical action pierces the barrier of impossibility but stops short of the supernatural or superheroic. And there’s a dashing graphic sense of composition and an assertively precise sense of rapid action that owes nothing to the generic jumble with which most Hollywood action scenes are filmed and edited. “RRR” is also filled with gore: streaming blood, spurting blood, bodies beaten and pierced and torn. Yet the combination of sharply determined political purpose and compositional artistry lends the horror an air of abstraction that stokes a sense of indignation or of justice without physical disgust or titillation.

The plot has twists and turns, hidden byways and surprising connections, that have the dazzle of magic tricks. The story’s omissions and truncations—an odd thing to refer to in a movie that runs to nearly three hours—contribute to the air of wonder and lend a jolt of astonishment to an extensive flashback that’s dropped in midway through. The drama is rooted in the absolute sadism, the monstrous and indeed genocidal racism of the British, the governmental terrorism with which Buxton reigns, the pathological bloodlust of power that Catherine flaunts, the dehumanizing prejudices of subordinate officers, and the vile politics of hiring indigenous people to do their dirty work. The story’s view of colonial despotism involves not only grievous economic inequality but also relentless political repression—and a sense of fear that’s nearly a sense of doom, signalled by the absolute ban on Indian people owning firearms and the tumult that results when even a single rifle falls into the hands of one of them.

For all its political determination, “RRR” is also a musical, and an electrifying one. The movie is filled with music and with characters singing at moments of grand political import; when Raju and Bheem manage to attend a high British social gathering, they convert a moment of cultural chauvinism into a spectacular dance-off. The frenetically athletic choreography involves gestures of a rapid-fire sculptural majesty to match the geometric flair of the images that capture it. Where the movie’s central dance is pugnaciously competitive, the fight scenes are dance-like, featuring moments of phantasmagorical splendor. One won’t soon forget the vision of a warrior carrying another on his back, with the one on top bearing two rifles and shooting them with deadly accuracy in opposite directions while the bearer breaks on the run through a brick wall. Or a runaway motorcycle being stopped with one foot as if it were a soccer ball, caught in midair, and hurled with the devastating force of a cannonball. Or a single flaming arrow igniting the entire countryside and yielding Wagnerian images of sublime destruction.

The drama of political unity that song lyrics characterize as “friendship between an erupting volcano and a wild storm” is also a flag-waving spectacle of patriotic pomp. The movie’s powerful sense of revolutionary virtue and collective purpose yields to nationalistic pride that’s danced and sung with uninhibited joy. The concluding production number, with militaristic bravado, spotlights the present-day purposes of this quasi-historical tale.

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India’s wild action movie RRR re-imagines real-life revolt as an epic superhero battle

The latest outsized crowd-pleaser from Baahubali series director S.S. Rajamouli finds massive thrills in revolution

by Katie Rife

In the famous “No Man’s Land” sequence from 2017’s Wonder Woman , Gal Gadot strides across a barren battlefield in slow motion, deflecting German bullets with her wrist cuffs and magical shield. The wind blows through her hair as she leaps across the muddy fields with godlike nimbleness, the score swelling behind her with patriotic pride. There’s a similar moment in RRR (“Rise Roar Revolt”), S.S. Rajamouli’s action-drama hybrid about the adventures of two Indian revolutionaries who have divergent approaches to resisting British occupation in 1920s Delhi. The difference is, in RRR , it’s just one of half a dozen scenes of its kind.

The latest outsized action spectacle from Rajamouli — director of the much-beloved Baahubali movies , available on Netflix — mythologizes two historical figures, Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri Sitarama Raju (Konidela Ram Charan). In real life, Bheem was a leader of the Gondi people who collaborated with other groups to resist landlords and mining companies encroaching onto tribal lands. Raju, meanwhile, led guerrilla attacks on imperial police stations, seizing British guns and ammunition to level the playing field between colonizer and colonized.

This last point makes its way into RRR , as part of a storyline that reframes Raju as a supercop on a mission to take down the British power structure from within. That’s a minor liberty, however, compared to the fact that in the film, both Raju and Bheem have superheroic agility, strength, and fighting abilities. Both can scale buildings like Spider-Man, dodge bullets like Wonder Woman, and flip their opponents like pro wrestlers. Bheem, representing the element of water, counts the animals of the forest among his allies, and bursts onto the field of battle with tigers and wolves by his side. And Raju, representing fire, drives a burning carriage and shoots flaming arrows. Picture Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere joining the MCU, with Franklin harnessing the power of electricity, and Revere the swiftness of the wind.

The superpowers aren’t the only liberty taken with their stories. RRR explains gaps in both men’s histories by proposing that they became friends after they each made their way to Delhi in the early 1920s — Raju as an undercover imperial cop, Bheem on a rescue mission to save a village girl kidnapped by a colonial governor. (They never met in real life.) In the film, the pair bond over their mutual derring-do. They’re two strangers who agree with a nod to embark on a dangerous impromptu rescue mission to save a little boy trapped by a flaming train accident on a Delhi river.

Subtlety, to put it mildly, is not Rajamouli’s thing. And so the director not only takes every opportunity available to hammer home the “fire and water” theme, he also works in dramatic slow-motion shots wherever he can. Bheem trips and knocks a silver tray out of a waiter’s hand at a garden party? The tray drops in slow motion and spins to a stop as guests stare with wide eyes and jaws agape. Raju pummels a punching bag in frustration after being passed over for a promotion? You bet those drops of sweat are beading off of his glistening, muscular shoulders and dashing mustache at half-speed.

RRR also deals in big emotions to match its hyper-dramatic shooting style. Betrayal, loyalty, and legacy are all major themes, and an alternate title of the film could be SSS — “Secrets. Subterfuge. Sacrifice.” Compared to a stereotypical Bollywood film (which RRR is not — it’s a Telugu production), RRR is relatively light on music and romance, devoting much of its screen time to visual spectacle, gonzo action, and patriotic zeal. The dynamic between Bheem and Raju has shades of the macho bromance of John Woo’s 1980s movies, until it transforms into a superhero team-up. And Rajamouli’s camera is unabashed in its worship of these men, introducing them with protracted sequences designed to build anticipation for viewers’ first look at the characters.

But RRR does make some time for comedy and music amid its stylized feats of mythological bravery. Between the title card — which pops up around the 45-minute mark — and the intermission (sorry, “InteRRRmission”) break two hours in, RRR pauses for a breezy interlude that invites viewers to hang out with the provincial Bheem and the more Anglicized Raju as they get into mischief and chase girls. Raju has a sweetheart back home — his childhood friend Sita (Alia Bhatt), to whom he pledged eternal loyalty before leaving his village to join the Indian Imperial Police. So he acts as Bheem’s wingman, helping Bheem charm sympathetic Englishwoman Jenny (Olivia Morris) with his aw-shucks attitude and impressive dance skills.

Jr NTR (the common abbreviation for N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) and Ram Charan, both Telugu superstars in their own right, show off those skills in the rousing “ Naatu Naatu, ” RRR ’s only real musical production number. (Another song, “Etthara Jenda,” plays over the end credits, and Bheem puts his defiance into song while being punished for his revolutionary activities.) Longtime Rajamouli collaborator M.M. Keeravani provides music for these numbers, along with a title song and instrumental compositions designed to get audiences to their feet.

RRR is a busy movie, full of kinetic camerawork, bustling crowd scenes, elaborate set design, expensive-looking CGI, and loud sound effects. Rajamouli is skilled at balancing the film’s many elements, so “overstimulated” isn’t quite the word for how walking out o f RRR feels. It’s more like the pleasant exhaustion after a good workout.

The extended running times of Indian films used to form a barrier to entry for Western audiences unaccustomed to spending three full hours at the movies. But times have changed, and RRR is only 10 minutes longer than The Batman . On the other hand, although it’s set for release in 30 countries , the film assumes a familiarity with certain characters and iconographies that might go over foreign viewers’ heads. Still, at its core, this is a story about people fighting for their beliefs against impossible odds. It’s about perseverance and the power of working together toward a common goal. Those themes are universally relatable — as is the giddy thrill of watching racist forces of imperial oppression get exactly what’s coming to them.

RRR is now playing in select theaters worldwide.

[ Ed. note: We recommend viewers check local listings or contact the theater to make sure you’re catching the version of RRR you want to see. The film was shot in Telugu, but some theaters are running multiple screens with versions of the film dubbed into one or more of the other major Indian languages: Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam. A Telugu screening will give you the original voice performances with English subtitles.]

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The Indian Action Blockbuster That Should Make Hollywood Jealous

RRR is the heroic epic we’ve been waiting for—one that’s not afraid of its own extravagance.

I can think of two action films from the past decade that involved a stunt in which an actor throws an entire motorcycle at someone. The first is the 2015 Marvel sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron . Captain America (played by Chris Evans), battling bad guys in a snowy forest, does a flip with his bike and flings it at an armored tank . But the moment is brushed off; Cap mutters an unrelated joke and his wild accomplishment is immediately undercut, an eye-rolling punctuation to a busy but washed-out combat set piece.

The other movie to feature two-wheelers as handheld weapons is the Indian epic RRR , a box-office phenomenon that’s become one of the highest grossers in the country’s history . In the final act, the rebel hero Komaram Bheem (N. T. Rama Rao Jr.), confronted with a motorcycle vrooming toward him, stops it in its tracks with a kick, grabs it by the front wheel, and uses it to demolish various opponents, swinging it around like a very unwieldy sword. The feat is ridiculous, but also utterly glorious, rendered in ultra-slow motion set to booming, jubilant music.

RRR , written and directed by S. S. Rajamouli, is more than three hours long, and its run time is bursting with moments like this, aggressive spectacles that are given enough room and emphasis to let the audience revel in them. Bheem is introduced with a training montage in the forest that sees him battle a tiger and a wolf. Later on, in one of his most preposterous attacks on nefarious colonial Brits, he mounts a truck filled with animals and crashes it into a gated fortress, then leaps out, flanked by an assortment of wild creatures, while carrying flaming torches in each hand. The visual is heroic nonsense, sure, but it’s also stirringly maximalist poetry, the kind of sincere triumphalism that feels absent from peer Hollywood blockbusters.

RRR (in English, the title stands for “Rise, Roar, Revolt”) is possibly the most expensive Indian film ever made, with a budget equivalent to $72 million. It is a product of the Telugu-language industry based in Hyderabad, which rivals the Mumbai-based Bollywood and has begun to threaten that sector’s position in terms of financial success. Rajamouli’s last two movies before this one are among the country’s biggest hits. So upon its March release, RRR ’s smash reception in India was to be expected. But its impressive performance in America , where it was initially screened in about 1,000 theaters, was surprising, given the comparative lack of press and advertising.

Since its strong opening weekend, RRR has become a word-of-mouth event in the U.S. Some theaters have organized packed special screenings as one-night events, and others have gone all in on daily showtimes for the foreseeable future, even though the film is now available to stream on Netflix. RRR has broken through for American audiences for likely a few reasons—many people desire fun, communal viewing experiences after years of COVID lockdowns, and cinema chains are casting wider nets as traditional Hollywood studios have had far fewer theatrical releases than usual in recent years. But I think the main explanation is that RRR offers the kind of action extravagance that even the biggest-budgeted superhero movies (such as Spider-Man: No Way Home or Black Widow ) seem curiously afraid to embrace.

Read: The new Doctor Strange is not just another Marvel movie

RRR is decidedly less cautious—even a single fired bullet will sometimes get its own slow-motion star treatment, as it blasts gracefully through the air toward a particular evildoer. No self-aware jokes are let loose to undermine the melodrama, and while most of RRR ’s many action scenes are overwhelming in scale, they also all manage to feel thematically different. The tale follows two freedom fighters, both loosely based on real-life figures from early-20th-century Indian history (though the script is entirely fictitious): Bheem, a defender of the Gond tribes looking to rescue a local girl kidnapped by the British, and Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan), who, in the film, is a military officer for the empire and secretly hopes to use his position to foment rebellion.

Though they share a hatred for the British, Bheem’s and Raju’s missions are often at cross-purposes, and the script delights in bringing the pair together as friends against all odds. After extended prologue scenes that separately depict their martial prowess, the movie finally unites them about 45 minutes in, when they both chance upon a train accident on a bridge that endangers a child. Bheem and Raju, despite never having met, immediately lock eyes from thousands of yards away and execute a complicated rescue. One of them charges forward on a horse, the other on a bike, and then they both do a series of gymnastic jumps that involves swinging from the bridge on ropes and passing a flag back and forth. (Almost every martial sequence in RRR is very difficult to describe in words, as should be the case for any good action movie.)

After all this, the boy is rescued, Bheem and Raju’s friendship is forged, and the film’s title finally flashes on-screen in full, as if Rajamouli is just now acknowledging that he’s earned the audience’s attention for the rest of the adventure ahead. Montages follow of the leads palling around, along with a masterful dance-off, multiple romances, plenty of tense fight scenes, and lots of lip-curling villainy from the occupying Brits. The thrill of RRR is not the density of its storytelling, though—it’s the exuberance of it.

I’ve invoked Marvel movies—plenty of which I enjoy—because they’re the most common example of the current American blockbuster style, one that lavishes hundreds of millions on intricate CGI action shots that often end up feeling airless, and in which even the grandest battles are executed with a depressing sameness. In those movies, giant monsters are defeated, and portals in the sky are closed, but seeing a film as visually inventive as RRR serves as a reminder of how much modern action usually follows a formula. If wonder is to be consistently found on the big screen, then Hollywood has plenty of new lessons to learn from its best competitor.

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Where to Watch

Watch RRR with a subscription on Netflix.

What to Know

Intoxicatingly over the top, RRR pulls out all the stops to make the absolute most of its 187-minute runtime.

Top-notch singing and dancing combine with a terrific story to make RRR a three-hour feast of entertainment.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

S.S. Rajamouli

N.T. Rama Rao Jr.

Komaram Bheem

Alluri Sitarama Raju

Ajay Devgan

Venkata Rama Raju

Shriya Saran

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