The Action Movie of the Summer Is an Indian Revolutionary Epic

There is only one movie this summer in which you can watch a man shoot a flaming arrow into the engine of a motorcycle that is flying through the air, which lands perfectly in the ammunition storage room of a British governor, which then explodes. That movie is the Telugu-language blockbuster RRR.

RRR is basically an ideal summer movie, combining the story of an unlikely friendship with mind-boggling action and stunts, as well as being a three-hour-long musical. When the movie released in the U.S. earlier in the year, it became a bit of a cult hit among cinephiles for being such a strong action movie. In India, the film is enormously popular, being directed by one of the biggest directors in the country right now, S. S. Rajamouli, and starring two of its biggest action stars in their first movie together, N. T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan. In fact, the movie is named RRR after the initial in their names that they all share: R.

Even just this description takes me back to action movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s, when you could sell people on a movie based on the stars alone. The premise of a film like Face/Off is patently ridiculous—until you learn that the movie stars John Travolta and Nicholas Cage, and is directed by John Woo. This movie isn’t a lot different than that, except instead of being a scheme to get Travolta and Cage to swap bodies, it’s set during the time when India was colonized by the British and is essentially fanfiction about two real historical revolutionaries who did not actually know each other. It’s nuts, but it doesn’t matter; the plot is just a pretext for the filmmakers showing you some of the coolest shit you’ve ever seen in your life.

RRR is a kind of movie that demands that you see it in the theater to experience the fullness of its spectacle, and especially its action. This is a kind of movie where the two leads meet by saving a child from an oil tanker exploding by driving a motorcycle and a horse, respectively, off opposite sides of a bridge, snatching the child trapped by the oil explosion in the nick of time, grasping each others’ hands as the tanker continues to explode in the background. It’s also the kind of movie where one lead breaks another out of prison, carrying him on his shoulders while the other uses a rifle in each hand to shoot the British soldiers trying to take them down.

But what makes RRR compelling isn’t just its action. A large part of that is that the friendship between its male leads is so simple, each of them charismatic enough to carry their own movie and somehow twice as charming together. Essentially they like each other because they sense that the other is just a really good dude, and as the film goes on, their dedication to freeing Indians from the grasp of the empire deepens that bond.

These two are an older kind of movie star; though they have acting chops, most of what the audience needs is delivered just by their presence on screen. When Rama Rao Jr. roars in the face of a CGI tiger or Charan does fights off an entire crowd of rioting people on his own, they sell these stunts by fully embracing the more-than-real space that cinema allows for. You believe that these men are larger than life because the camera just loves them. Especially in the scene where Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan’s characters get one up on the stuffy British people by challenging them to a dance off, it’s impossible to not want them to succeed. 

What also makes this movie really work is the ridiculous historical fanfiction that makes up the plot. To put it gently, English people in this movie are portrayed, with one single exception, as the worst people on earth. The entire plot kicks off when an evil English woman, played by one  Alison Doody (who played a Nazi in Indiana Jones), literally kidnaps a child to be her slave in a ridiculous English mansion. Shortly after, that woman’s husband tells a soldier not to waste a bullet on the Indian woman begging for her daughter back, and to beat her with a tree branch instead. At one point in his quest to return this child to her home, Rama Rao Jr. proclaims, “These white women, don’t they have children? If they were to cry one time, they’d learn how much tears hurt.” 

The story from beat to beat is extremely simple, which makes it very easy to want to root for the good guys. The bad guys are just cartoonishly evil—and history basically backs the movie up on that even if none of these events specifically ever occurred. Near the end of the film, blood splatters on the phrase “the sun never sets on the British empire,” a moment that is exceptionally cathartic after watching a not-very-exaggerated portrayal of just how racist the British empire was towards Indians.

RRR is now streaming on Netflix in Hindi, and is available to stream in the original Telugu on Indian streaming service Vee5, but if you have the ability to see it in theaters, you should. The best part of a summer action blockbuster are the moments you get to share with the other people in the theater, where you cheer and laugh and gasp and overhear the commentary that other theater goers have with each other. Like Marvel movies, this film has moments where you know that the filmmakers are anticipating applause or cheers, but because the story only has to serve itself instead of a broader cinematic universe, those moments feel earned by the narrative. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so satisfied by the end of an action blockbuster. By the time the credits rolled, the theater goers that shared this experience with me were clapping and cheering.