‘RRR’ Review: A Hero (or Two) Shall Rise - The New York Times

‘RRR’ Review: A Hero (or Two) Shall Rise - The New York Times



CRITIC’S PICK

‘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.
Give this article





N.T. Rama Rao Jr. in “RRR.”Credit...DVV Entertainment




By Nicolas Rapold
April 5, 2022
RRRNYT Critic's PickDirected by S.S. RajamouliAction, DramaPG-133h 7mFIND TICKETS

When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.


Sign up for the Watching newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Streaming TV and movie recommendations from critic Margaret Lyons and friends. Get it in your inbox.


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.)


ADVERTISEMENTContinue reading the main story




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).


Image
Ram Charan in “RRR.”Credit...DVV Entertainment




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.




RRR
NYT Critic's Pick
FIND TICKETS

When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
DirectorS.S. Rajamouli
WriterS.S. Rajamouli
StarsN.T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan, Ajay Devgn, Alia Bhatt, Shriya Saran
RatingPG-13
Running Time3h 7m
GenresAction, Drama