RRR

What if two of India's most storied freedom fighters had met before history knew their names? That's the question RRR answers with a three-hour burst of fists, fire, and friendship. S. S. Rajamouli takes Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, real revolutionaries who never crossed paths in life, and drops them into 1920s Delhi as brothers-in-arms on opposite sides of a secret war. Ram Charan plays Raju, a colonial police officer with a hidden agenda, while N. T. Rama Rao Jr. is Bheem, a Gond tribal who storms the capital to bring home a kidnapped girl.

The film's engine is the bond between these two men, built in a single unforgettable rescue and then tested by every loyalty the story can throw at them. Rajamouli, working from a script he developed with V. Vijayendra Prasad, fills the frame with tiger hunts, prison breaks, and a dance number that turned into a global sensation. M. M. Keeravaani's score and K. K. Senthil Kumar's camera give the whole thing a mythic weight, even as the tone swings from tragedy to pure joy.

Released on March 24, 2022, in Telugu and dubbed into Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam, RRR became a genuine crossover event. It grossed over $166 million worldwide against a roughly $69 million budget and later won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Naatu Naatu," the first Indian film song to take that prize. For a generation of viewers outside India, it was the movie that made Telugu cinema impossible to ignore. [edit]

A young girl named Malli is taken from her Gond village in the forest of Gondwana. The British governor, Scott Buxton, and his wife, Cassandra, have decided to keep her as a kind of pet after a visit to the region, and the tribe has no power to stop them. Komaram Bheem, the community's protector, leaves home and travels to Delhi under the alias Akhtar, a Muslim mechanic, to find her. He works quietly, asking questions, watching, waiting for a chance to strike.

Alluri Sitarama Raju is a different kind of force. He serves the colonial police, and he serves them well, with a physical prowess that makes him stand out even among the British officers. What his superiors don't know is that the uniform is a mask. Raju's uncle Venkatarama Raju and the rest of his family are part of a long-running plan to arm their people, and Raju's position is the key to getting the weapons. He is patient, disciplined, and entirely committed to a cause no one around him can see.

The two men meet by accident. A child is trapped near a train, and Bheem and Raju each leap into action without knowing who the other is. They save the boy together, and something clicks. Raju brings Bheem home, introduces him to his family, and the two become brothers in everything but blood. Bheem even grows close to Sita, the woman Raju loves, and for a while the film lets you believe this friendship might be enough to hold.

But Raju has been assigned to find the outsider causing trouble in the city, and Bheem is that outsider. Neither knows the other's real mission. Bheem keeps searching for Malli, and Raju keeps protecting his secret. The middle of the film is a chain of set pieces that keep raising the stakes: a public flogging that turns into a display of defiance, the joyous "Naatu Naatu" dance-off, a tiger hunt that goes wrong, a prison break, and a truck full of animals that becomes a weapon. Each sequence pulls the two men closer to the moment when their loyalties will collide.

That collision comes when Bheem's cover is blown. Raju is forced to choose between the brother he loves and the revolution he has spent his life preparing for. The film does not make it easy. Raju's choice sends Bheem into the hands of the British, and the friendship that anchored the first half shatters. From there, Bheem becomes an outlaw, and Raju becomes the man hunting him. The final act sets them on a collision course, with Malli still captive and the governor's compound waiting.[edit]