RRR: Netflix’s Tollywood blast that will restore your faith in movies
Graeme Tuckett
The Netflix algorithm is unambitious. It’ll show you the Top 10 films and shows of the week. And after that, its criteria for what it might push towards you is based on a pretty limited idea of what you’ve watched before.
But, sometimes it pays off. A few weeks back, I was looking for Baahubali 2 – the sequel to the outrageously funny and energetic first film – when Netflix decided what I really wanted was a film called RRR. As soon as the trailer started to play, I decided Netflix was right.
Holy heck whā nau. RRR is a blast. This film could restore your faith in movies.
RRR is set in the 1920s, in India, before the Poms gave up and went home. In classic myth and superhero tradition, there’s a lawman, who seems to have superhuman strength and speed. And there’s an outsider – a bandit. Ditto.
The lawman is in town to catch the bandit – and the bandit is there to free his sister, who has been kidnapped by the dastardly colonialists.
When the two of them bond unexpectedly over a train crash and the rescue of a child, a friendship is born that will last several lifetimes.
But, things get awkward when our heroes work out their new bestie is playing for the other team.
RRR unfolds over three hours – I watched it over two nights, but it breaks perfectly into three chapters – during which you will see fighting, dancing, explosions, more fighting, more dancing, a whole zoo-load of tigers and bears, some more fighting and explosions and – did I mention there was dancing?
At times, RRR looks like John Woo has directed remakes of Grease, Braveheart and John Wick – but the editors weren’t told which film was which. And then everything was dialled to a level that Western film makers don’t know how to find any more.
Of course, the Russo Brothers (Avengers: Endgame, The Gray Man) are fans.
Director SS Rajamouli and stars NT Rama Rao Jr and Ram Charan are mainstays of the Telugu (Tollywood/Bengali cinema) movie industry. RRR was shot across the continent, over years – with a budget that eclipsed every Indian film to date. There’s swooning love affairs, hilariously expositional lyrics, some massively overt Hindu nationalism and a villain (Irish actor Ray Stevenson) who looks like Sam Neill on doughnuts.
In its best moments, RRR scales heights of overthe-top dementedness and hilarity that we haven’t seen in decades. The bromance at its heart makes the one that fuels Woo’s The Killer look halfhearted. And in its worst moments? I’m not really sure there are any.
Watch RRR in dubbed-Hindi with subtitles for the full effect – and sit back for more entertainment in one movie than The Rings Of Power or House Of The Dragon could offer you in an entire season of TV.
RRR is a reminder that melodrama and pure fantasy – and dancing, did I mention the dancing? – are at the soul of cinema. RRR is proof how much fun a film can be. Vande Mataram!