RRR is a Revelation
An ode to my favorite movie-watching experience of 2022
A three-hour foreign film on a Tuesday night? No thanks. That was my initial thought when my friend Eric invited me to see RRR- a Tollywood action epic- with him on a Tuesday night in November.
There were so many reasons to say no. A robust run time. A genre I do not connect with. And all of it with subtitles! To be sure, I wasn’t totally opposed. I avoided seeing RRR for a long time as it emerged from India in late March with an instant cult following. Many saw it on Netflix but devoted fans of action movies found packed screenings across the country to attend. This late November screening was one of the only opportunities (in Los Angeles at least) to see this movie in theaters. So I said yes. And I am so glad I did.
RRR is a sprawling epic based on the stories of two Indian revolutionaries who fought against the colonial British empire in the 1920s. Bheem (played by N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) is tasked with rescuing a young girl the British colonial government kidnapped from his tribe and brought to Delhi. Raju (played by Ram Charan), an ambitious member of the Indian Imperial Army, sets out to destroy Bheem to ensure the girl is kept in captivity. Their stories complicate when they become best friends, without knowing the true identity or motives of one another.
The story S.S. Rajamouli presents is a tale as old as time. It is an epic about friendship, love, and revenge. And even though the story feels familiar, the extraordinary filmmaking breaths life into a saturated genre in American film.
The three hour film features a man single handedly fighting a tiger, a protest scene around a prison that is one of the most epic action sequences I’ve seen in any movie, and a climactic battle scene at a palace that makes Thanos and his infinity stones seem like child’s play. And while RRR is a blood-curdling action film, it also features thrilling musical sequences and tender moments of budding friendship and romance.
If I entered the theater a skeptic, I left it gobsmacked. RRR is a movie. It’s big and it’s bold. Its epic scale is matched by its eye-popping cinematography, brutalist score, and booming sound design. It’s a movie that will make you want to stand up and cheer multiple times until you remember that you are in a theater among other people so instead you settle for quietly whispering, “hell yea.”
But most importantly, RRR puts American action filmmakers on notice. Big budget action movies and superhero movies dominate the U.S. box office. Every movie in the top 5 for the domestic box office in 2022 was an action movie. Top Gun: Maverick, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Jurassic World Dominion all represent the state of the industry for the movie-going public. American audiences love action movies and superhero movies (and also maybe sequels?). But these types of movies have declined in quality. For Marvel movies, their stories are criticized as reductive. Their films are pieced together with scripts that change weeks into production. And the VFX houses that are hired to make Marvel movies look like comic books are under a level of pressure that results in incomplete and haphazard work.
So despite action movies having a chokehold on American audiences, the quality of the product has declined. As a viewer, I am bored by the most recent action installments and have become allergic to the genre as a whole. So naturally, I doubted RRR before I stepped into the theatre.
But RRR surprised me and blew me away. Rajamouli’s approach to storytelling and filmmaking should be a guiding light for American studios and filmmakers that engage with this genre.
Most impressive to me was the balanced tone that Rajamouli imbued throughout the entire film. He accomplished something we rarely see on screen in these types of movies. Our filmmakers create a playful filmic environment for our serious characters with high stakes to act within. In other words, RRR tells a serious story in an unpretentious way. This may sound like a small observation but this decision changes the way audiences are allowed to engage with the maximalist events on screen.
Marvel movies, in particular, are known for their winking tone placed against the biggest stakes imaginable. Captain America and Iron Man make sly comments as the world faces the prospect of absolute destruction. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, its overuse has created a predictable feeling while watching a Marvel movie. It is a tired approach which made seeing the inverse on screen so thrilling.
The characters’ belief in the seriousness of their own stakes fills RRR with inherent emotionality and drama. And Rajamouli’s playfully creative storytelling devices balance that intense emotionality with a lightheartedness throughout. The result is a movie filled with genuinely touching moments, high suspense, thrilling action, and laugh out loud comedy. It has everything but doesn’t ever feel too full. Its maximalist but specific. Its simple and elemental but also completely transforming and revelatory. In a movie landscape where action films feel derivative and formulaic, RRR breaks through because it breaks that formula. It doesn’t look or feel like a 2020s action movie. And it’s better for it.