It has been way, way, way too long since I reviewed a Indian film. Over five years, from what I can tell, from a time when I used to look at them fairly frequently. I don’t really have a reason for why, as my local cinema shows plenty of Hindi-, Tamil-, and Telugu-language cinema; I guess I have just taken to prioritising English-language cinema. And as much as I could fluff a reason for why that is, to do with difficulties in reading other people’s emotions and language barriers and other such things… yeah. Maybe I just need to reintroduce them back into my regular media diet. Especially if the region is capable of something like this.
At a time when filmmakers like Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich, and Justin Lin are still getting work in Hollywood, it feels like the word “insane” has somewhat lost its meaning when it comes to action scenes. Well, here’s the new benchmark. Because everything in this film, up to and including the action beats, are all presented on full blast, I’ll admit that picking out individual moments is kind of difficult. A lot of gunfire, a lot of actual fire, a lot of bows and arrows, a lot of animal attacks, I seem to remember a motorcycle being used as a club at one point; it’s totally bonkers. With how oversaturated superhero films have become in the West, this feels like a touch-grass moment for the genre to reiterate that, if you’re going to focus on such larger-than-life characters, then their actions should follow suit.
As for said characters, the film’s narrative is essentially an example of historical fanfiction, positing a what-if scenario for the meeting and eventual bonding between two Indian revolutionaries in Komaram Bheem (Rama Rao Jr.) and Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan). While they both get their equal share of screentime and displays of ridiculous badassitude throughout, they also get half of the film devoted to their respective viewpoints and character arcs.
The first half focuses on Bheem, a tribal warrior and healer, who is tasked with rescuing a kidnapped girl from British governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson in prime slimy villain form) and his wife Catherine (Alison Doody, ditto). It follows the circumstances surrounding the girl, Malli (Twinkle Sharma))’s kidnapping, Bheem’s plans to stop it, his first meeting with Raju, and his budding romance with Olivia Morris as British aristocrat Jenny. This is where the dramatic irony of the story is at its most potent, since it contrasts Bheem’s attempts to disrupt the British occupation with the role of Raju, an officer of the loyalist Indian Imperial Police. As the soundtrack keeps reminding the audience, they are on opposing sides, and what’s more, the tension created by that doesn’t end up clashing with the cuter language-barrier moments between Bheem and Jenny.
Then the second half kicks in, and we get more of a look at Raju, who… well, let’s just say that he has his reasons for being in the IIP. The dramatic irony gives way to fully embracing the bromantic side of things between him and Bheem, as they discover the heart of each other’s attitudes and work together to fulfill their goals. Both Charan and Rao are amazingly good in their performances here, and with their initially-opposed stances and the scale of the visuals and fight scenes… honestly, this feels like what Batman v. Superman should have been.
And indeed, the way the story plays out is so (intentionally) detached from the laws of mundane reality that it reaches that mythic level, which makes what’s ultimately going on here hit even harder. Beyond just the budding friendship between the leads, which is so strong that it could have carried all three hours of this film on its own, it’s ultimately an attempt at a cultural singularity. A combination of Indian folklore, history, religion, and art, as a thematic backdrop for what would eventually lead to India’s independence. It’s quite nationalistic, as is usually the case with this tier of blockbuster, but it never gets to the point of feeling cheap or underhanded in the process. Maybe it’s because I have some in-built solidarity with this kind of story, since both Australia and India know what it's like to get fucked over the British Empire, but seeing both the racist treatment directed at the Indian characters and their increasingly-bombastic reactions to it got to me quite a bit.
This film rewrites the typical ludicrousness of blockbuster cinema (regardless of region) into a rare example of a film described as an ‘epic’ that wholeheartedly earns that description. Everything from the action to the comedy to the drama to the music is built up to such a height that the film genuinely feels massive, as if the frame is going to bend and break from the pressure. It’s a long film, but never a dull one, as that consistent elevation means that, just when it looks like they couldn’t make things any more gonzo, someone quite literally lets the tigers loose. I missed out on seeing this on the big screen, and more so than any other film I watched at home this year, I regret that because this is the kind of awe-inspiring spectacle that deserves to be seen as big as possible. But hey, with how gargantuan this feels, watching it at home on Netflix isn’t that much of a compromise.
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