What is hype? Urban Dictionary defines hype as anything wild, flashy, fun, rowdy, or wild that gets you excited about something. I can write a better definition in three letters, and those letters are RRR! 

          Let’s get this out of the way; this isn’t a review, it’s propaganda. I do not care about showcasing different opinions or trying to stay objective. My only goal in writing this is to convince you to watch this movie, not only because this movie deserves to be seen by everyone, but because everyone deserves to see this movie. Everyone needs a work of art like this in their lives. Something that reminds you of how awesome life can be when you give up trying to make sense of it. But I’ll save that for the closing paragraph.

          For the unenlightened, Rise-Roar-Revolt is a 3-hour-long movie about two Indian revolutionaries fighting against British colonialists in 1920. When I first heard that premise, I thought it would be one of those “epic” movies, like Lawrence of Arabia, Dances with Wolves, or Seven Samurai. These are all great movies, but they’ve never felt epic to me; they just felt long. RRR, on the other hand, is a true epic! Every scene in RRR could be the climax in another movie! Everything is turned up to 11, not for any greater artistic purpose, but because 11 is the highest number you can turn something to!

          Here are three things that happen in RRR. One, a man shoots an arrow into a grenade thrown at him, sending it flying back so it can explode in the face of the guy who threw it. Two, a different man punches a tiger in mid-air with a flaming torch. Three, another man grabs a motorcycle speeding towards him and spins it around to hit a bunch of dudes. One of those three things I made up, I’ll leave it up to you to discover which one. It was very hard to think of something as awesome as the things that happen in this movie, but not as hard as finding examples of awesome things in this movie that can be easily described with words.

          At this point, you might be thinking that RRR is a parody of over-the-top action movies like Hot Fuzz or Tropic Thunder. That’s what I thought at first too, but it’s not. It’s hilarious but the movie never treats itself like a joke. As over the top as it often is, it still takes its plot and its characters seriously, and even though you’re laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, so do you. Speaking of its characters, they’re what make this movie more than just a bunch of cool fight scenes strung together. At the core of RRR is one of the best bromances of all time. A friendship between two mythic titans of awesomeness, brought together by the winds of fate but destined to be torn apart by their conflicting destinies. Their bond is the heart of this movie. Watching these two normally stoic supermen turn into fun-loving best friends for no reason other than they’re the only people in the world as cool as each other is one of the most heartwarming things I’ve ever seen on a screen. Their bond does not come across with dialogue, it comes across in their actions, in what they’re willing to sacrifice for the other, how they fight and train side by side, or just how they laugh as they eat together. It’s not a complicated friendship, but it is a deep one.

          Nothing in RRR is complicated. It has themes, but there’s nothing you’ll be contemplating and mulling over after the movie’s over. Every emotion and every idea it conveys is genuine and pure. Any nuance would only serve to taint that purity. When there’s a scene with the bad guy there’s no deeper motivation or complex morality to get in the way of how much you hate this dude and want to see him get taken down! When there’s an action scene there isn’t any thought given to logic or physics to get in the way of how sick it is! And when the character’s opposing motivations inevitably come to a head there isn’t any other emotion to feel to get in the way of the heartbreak. When you watch RRR you do not think about what you are watching, you only feel.

          I know that there are some people to who that prospect won’t appeal. Some people only like movies with lots of layers that have tones of deeper meanings to analyze, and don’t like ones with simple characters with unrealistic actions. For the longest time, I considered myself to be one of those people, which is why I’m so glad I watched this movie. I’ve never seen another work of art that loved what it was more than RRR. It loves the action, it loves the characters, it loves nature, it loves the culture, it loves the food, the music, the dance, the art, the concept of friendship, romance, heroism, rebellion, of good triumphing over evil. It loves it all so unabashedly and uncritically that it’s impossible not to fall in love with all those things too.

          I promise you that if you watch it all the way through there will be a point in this movie where you surrender yourself to it. Where you stop questioning and analyzing all of the beautiful madness happening in front of you and simply let yourself enjoy it; when you stop searching for a deeper meaning and start having fun with what’s in front of you. If RRR had a deeper message that’s what I think it would be, but honestly that doesn’t feel intentional, it’s just a byproduct of what the movie is. And what the movie is, is a blast. That’s what it all comes down to. It’s a good movie that you should watch because it’s good and you’ll have a good time watching it. And it doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

          Oh yeah, and it’s also the best musical ever.