RRR (2022) Review

RRR is probably the longest Epic movie I’ve watched in recent years. Running for 3 hours recounting the tale of Komaram Bheem and A. Rama Raju, two revolutionary leaders from India during the British Raj/British occupation. Though the story is fiction, since it’s based on two famous leaders in the country, this movie is quite intriguing to watch. Tollywood or Telugu based film is known for its exaggeration and special effects on its movie that sometimes just lack coherence and are hard to grasp. Its effect is often a subject of memes as well. I certainly was expecting from RRR and I was right. Throughout the movie,the effect is quite exaggerated but the story and how the narration evolved was quite captivating. Unrelated to the movie, I was also watching it just a day after India’s independence. So, watching RRR was quite a refresh of knowledge about the British colonization. This film also receives numerous awards and is fairly well accepted worldwide. One that I found intriguing was the song Naatu Naatu because when I was traveling, people were talking about that and I was the only one who was unaware of it. Apparently, that song is the first Indian song to win an Oscar. If you have not watched it, without further adieu, let me show you what the movie is all about!

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Governor Scott Buxton and his wife Catherine visited the forest where Gonds tribe resides. Buxton was a governor during the British raj and while he was out hunting, Catherine’s was receiving a henna hand painting by Malli, a young girl from Gond tribe. Pleased with the result of the hand painting, Catherine wanted to bring Malli to the city and leave the tribe. Their aide, Edward, throws a few coins on the ground while the rest of the tribe thinking that it was a gift for them apparently, later they realized it was the payment for Malli to be brought to the governor’s house. Running to chase Malli, her mother was later injured by one of Scott’s soldiers and Scott expressed a view that the tribe was equal to an animal and not a human. Enraged with the situation that occurred in his tribe, the guardian of Gond,Komaram Bheem(N. T. Rama Rao Jr. ) decided to go to the city and disguise himself as a muslim man.

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In the city, an ambitious police man, A. Rama Raju (Ram Charan ) was trying to climb his way up but was constantly failing just because he was not a british. At the same time while Komaran Bheem was becoming a potential threat to the governor, a bounty was made to discover Bheem. Nobody was willing to chase him until Raju stepped up. However, while searching for Bheem, Raju befriended Akhtar, who is actually Bheem in disguise. As they bonded over friendship, it was inevitable that they were from two opposing sides. Later on, Raju realized the true identity of Akhtar. One night while there was a reception at Governor’s Scott’s place, Bheem and the other members of the tribe ambushed the place with wild animals injuring a lot of soldiers. At this point, Bheem and Raju got into a one-on-one fight. Eventually Bheem was captured and Raju got a promotion. Inside the weaponry that belongs to the British, Raju recalled the promise that he held to his father. He wanted to give his tribe weapons to fight the British and while getting closer to his goal,he was required to choose his friendship or his promise that he made to his father and his tribe.

In my opinion, this film has a solid story with quite intriguing visual effects. The scene of the fights and even the angle were quite good. No wonder that this film received quite a few awards. The story hooks you for 3 hours and though the pacing is a lot slower, it’s something expected from Tollywood where there’ll be a dance and musical throughout it. I took a 5 minute break after 2 hours to stretch and continued watching it. The fight scenes were the ones I enjoyed from this film and also the part where the animals were unleashed to fight off the British soldiers. I would definitely recommend this movie to watch at least once in a lifetime. Compared to all Tollywood, this is definitely on top of the list other than bahubali. I would also rate it 6.5 out of 10.