When enquiring about RRR to your friends or family, it is actually a crime to just ask – “How was the movie?“. A friend of mine rightly asked – “How great was the movie?“. That’s exactly how one should expect Rajamouli movies to be. You cannot expect anything less than a masterpiece from the master storyteller. You thought there is no way a movie could beat Eega, there came a Baahubali (in fact, two), and when everyone thought nothing could come close to Baahubali, there comes RRR now. According to Rajamouli, a benchmark is set just to break it later, and no one else can better it other than himself. It is like he raises the bar not for others to reach but for himself to break it and raise it even further.
In a way, RRR is like an Avengers. You don’t sit and analyse the loopholes – technical or the physics defying moments, what went wrong, what could have been better. No, that’s not why such movies are made. Such movies are made for the audience to come together to have a cinematic experience. RRR is one of the greatest movies ever made in India. You may have different opinions about the movie, but at the end of the day, nothing comes close to the experience that this movie gives. The drama, the stunts, the action sequences enthralls in every sense.
The bromance between Alluri Seetharama Raju (Ram Charan) and Komaram Bheem (Jr NTR) is what the movie is based on. Throughout the movie, it is only about these two, their friendship, their mission, their betrayal, their promise. The screen presence of both these actors, in fact, complement each other that it is a perfect tribute for their companionship and brotherhood that you witness on screen. Watching it on the first day gave me one of the craziest theatre experiences, something that we all have been craving for the last two years now.
Rajamouli is fondly and very rightly known as Jakanna, a name coined by Jr NTR for him, in reference to the famous Indian sculpture Amarashilpi Jakanachari, for the sole reason that he keeps chiseling until he is satisfied with the output. You can see how he has a keen eye for perfection with the way the Naatu Naatu song is choreographed. It is nothing less than legendary stuff, for the fact that both the actors’ coordination looks like watching that song from the Jeans movie where the other Aishwarya Rai is technologically created to fool the family. Here, we are fooled by the two of the best dancers of our times to think those have been technologically synchronised, but in reality, those aren’t. The choreography and the execution of the dance movements are so perfect that Jr NTR and Ram Charan sweat it out to achieve an unbelievable level of coordination. Wait for the moment where it turns into a competition amongst them all.
The respective introduction sequences of Bheem and Rama Raju were terrific in its own sense that we are at the edge of our seats due the proceedings on screen. The way the characters are made to fight it out in their respective events has not left my head even after two days, especially that long sequence of Rama Raju wading through an extremely revolting crowd to catch hold of one guy. Also, the sequence where the two leads meet for the first time (a thunderous response in theatre for that moment), that was one of the craziest inter-introduction sequences. There is this scene where Ram gets hold of the then Indian flag while swinging into the collapsing bridge. Everyone would think this is being done to evoke patriotism, well yes, that’s what it seems to, but that flag is being passed over to Bheem on the other side to protect himself from the burning fire, where he would be swinging back after handing over a stuck kid to Rama Raju. Note that the flag was dipped in water before handing over, hence the effect of fire burning Bheem would be minimal. This is all very carefully written and brilliantly executed.
The pre-interval sequences and the pre-climax sequences are one of the best highlights of the movie, the action sequences and stunts and the way Ram and Bheem slay the British on screen with their immense coordination, is nothing short of a mind boggling cinematic experiences. The sequence where Ram uses a grenade attached to an arrow is a crazy amalgamation, wherein arrow is for accuracy and the grenade is for extermination. What an unbelievable deadly combo! One other sequence, another unexpectedly crazy moment, was at the start of the pre-interval sequence. My eyes literally popped out when I saw the thing that I saw emerging from the truck. I don’t really know how Rajamouli’s mind works to create such sequences and make it in a never-seen-before commercial way. Rajamouli has literally made his imagination run wild.
The only problem a few may have with RRR is the historical authenticity of the real life personalities Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem. Rajamouli conveniently had to tweak the stories of the two to bring them together. It sometimes feels that such tweaking might not make justice to the struggle that they originally had during the pre-independence war. However, Rajamouli had put out the word in every interview he gave that this is a fictional story involving the real-life characters. There was a period of 3-4 years in both their lives that has no record about their whereabouts in the history books and Rajamouli particularly wanted to make use of that blackspot period to tell this story.
It is important that we understand that the Seetharama Raju we see in the pre-climax sequence, might just resemble Lord Ram, but it is actually how Rama Raju looked during his later years of the freedom struggle. He wore saffron attire, fought with bows and arrows against the British for the welfare of tribals.
RRR (or any Rajamouli’s movies for that matter) is Rajamouli’s statement to everyone that a commercial movie is indeed an art, and it is equally difficult to create an emotion in a commercial movie setup. Rajamouli’s movies have a lot of commercial elements infused amongst a very strong emotion at its core. That emotion is what drives all his movies even though on the outside you may see it as just a commercial movie and dismiss it.
RRR may not be a Baahubali with respect to the story, there may or may not be a hundred loopholes, but nothing can come close to seeing two of the greatest superstars on screen together, with the vision of the master storyteller making us spellbound every time he makes something of this grandeur. There is no point in getting to know whether the movie is good or a one-time watch, but it is even more easier to throng to the theatres and experience yourself the greatest cinema of our times.
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