Film / RRR (2022)

Rage, War, Blood. And fire and water, while we're at it.

"Your friendship is more valuable than this life."

RRR (Raudraṁ Raṇaṁ Rudhiraṁ^note Rage, War, Blood; Rise, Roar, Revolt in English) is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language^note also dubbed in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam action epic directed by S. S. Rajamouli, director of the Baahubali films, starring N.T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan, Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn, Ray Stevenson, Alison Doody, and Olivia Morris.^note in case you are wondering, the title, originally a Working Title, comes from the names of the film's director and its primary stars: S.S. Rajamouli, Ram Charan, and N.T. Rama Rao Jr; the full titles in several languages are backronyms chosen from fan suggestions.

It is a Historical Fiction Alternate History based on the real-life Indian freedom fighters Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, positing a What If? scenario where the two men met during The Raj: the 89-year colonization of the Indian subcontinent by the British Empire. The story starts in 1920 when the cruel British governor Scott Buxton abducts a young Indian girl named Malli from her rural tribe on the whim of his wife, who enjoyed Malli's singing and artistry. The tribe's guardian, Komaram Bheem, is enraged by this act and vows to rescue Malli from her captivity at Buxton's stronghold in Delhi.

When Buxton is forewarned of Bheem's arrival and mission, he promises a valuable promotion to any member of the Indian Imperial Police who tracks down and captures Bheem. His offer is taken up by A. Rama Raju, an ambitious and extremely capable Indian policeman struggling to break through the glass ceiling imposed by his racist commanding officers.

Bheem and Raju happen to meet while incognito, and strike up a powerful friendship while unaware of each others' true identities; thus setting up an inevitable and epic showdown between friends, missions, promises, and peoples.

Not to be confused with the 2000s sports manga. Or the French film RRRrrr!!! (yes, that's a real title).

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RRR provide examples of the following tropes:

• Abnormal Ammo: In the climax, Ram converts a bow and arrow into an impromptu rocket launcher by attaching grenades to the arrows.
• Ammunition Conservation: The lack of Bottomless Magazines plays a pivotal role in Ram's backstory. And even in the heat of a battle when he fights with a bow and arrow, he remembers to retrieve arrows.
• Arc Words: "Load! Aim! Shoot!" is repeated throughout the movie, particularly by Ram. It is him parroting the words of his father, as Ram made a vow to him in the latter's final moments to secure British rifles for the rebellion, turning the Empire's weapons against them. In the end, Ram turns these three words into a Pre-Mortem One-Liner for Governor Scott right before Bheem shoots and kills him.
• Armies Are Evil: The British security forces are portrayed as merciless and cruel whenever they appear on screen, most prominently seen during Ram's flashback, where a company of British soldiers open fire on his village, killing women and children alike and visibly enjoying it, and at the beginning when a British police sergeant beats Malli's mother unconscious with a tree branch.

• Artistic License – History:
  • Venkata Rama Raju in real life was a professional photographer and was never recorded as having trained a rebellion against the British. He also died when Alluri Sitamama Raju was only eight, unlike in the movie when he died when Ram was in his early teens.
  • The real Alluri Sitamama Raju never infiltrated the Imperial Indian Police so he could secretly arm his own people. He actually stole their guns in a more direct way by attacking multiple police stations at once with large numbers of rebels and plundering them of their weapons and ammo.
  • The real Komaram Bheem was far more educated than the character in RRR, having learned to speak and read Hindi, Urdu, and English while working at a printing press.
• Asshole Victim: Almost every British character with spoken dialogue is the most heinous character in the film, which makes it difficult to pity them when our heroes beat, shoot or explode any of them.
• Badass Boast:
  • Ram ends up delivering one when he makes the call to hit Buxton directly.
    "How long are we going to keep hunting jackals? Let's bag us a lion!"
  • Bheem makes several of his own, including one promising Sita he will bring Ram back to her even if he has to lay down his own life, and one to Ram that he will break him out of prison even if he has to burn it to the ground.
• Badass in Distress: Happens first to Bheem, when he's captured and tortured for attacking the governor's mansion, and later to Ram, when he's discovered as a traitor. Each man is rescued by the other, echoing the theme of their reciprocal friendship throughout the movie.
• Bait the Dog: After effectively kidnapping Malli from her village, Governor Scott stops one of his policemen from shooting her despondent mother on the spot when she tries to stop their convoy... because bullets are expensive and too valuable to be wasted on "brown rubbish". So he permits the soldier to club Malli's mother with a nearby tree branch instead.
• Bash Brothers: Ram and Bheem fight in perfect sync with each other.
• Beard of Evil: Governor Scott sports a full beard and is a racist tyrant.
• Berserk Button:
  • Bheem is a Gentle Giant in everything... until it comes to Malli, then watch out. When Ram tries to arrest him, he doesn't fight back until Ram's actions make him lose the key of the door she's locked behind.
  • Governor Scott dislikes seeing his men shoot rebelling Indians unless absolutely necessary, seeing it as a waste of a valuable resource to dispose of 'brown rubbish', lecturing them on how expensive ammunition is (in his opinion), and often telling them to find another way to deal with them, usually leading to a brutal, drawn-out and fatal beating.
• Berserker Tears: Ram sheds them when he realizes that his friend is the man he's been searching for and has to arrest, and ends up punching multiple holes in his wall while he's doing it.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Bheem is shown to be kind, courteous, and friendly in everyday life, genuinely becoming friends with Ram and inviting him into his home. However, he's devoted to his mission and is truly a force to be reckoned with when there's fighting to be done.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Governor Scott and his wife are the combined head of the oppressive British Raj, making them this.
• Big Damn Heroes: Ram and Bheem meet by rescuing a little boy from a burning train just seconds before it explodes.
• Bilingual Dialogue: There's several cases of British characters talking only in English to Indians speaking Telugu (in the original audio). The only exception is Ram translating for Bheem and Jenny.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Bheem, oh so much. He loves a good fight while loudly and enthusiastically enjoying time with friends.
• Bottomless Magazines: Ram fires multiple shots from a single breach-loading rifle before Bheem reloads for him, and that’s not getting into how many arrows he has left in his quiver after the final action scene. To his credit, he's able to recover and reuse some arrows in the latter's case.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Right after the prison breakout, Bheem come across a golden idol of Rama, and gets the idea to use the bow and arrows decorating it. They still work. Very well. Ram's Improbable Aiming Skills help a lot.
• Call-Back: This movie is full of them.
  • Ram looking at the Police Armoury at the start of the movie after he's passed over for promotion gets another shot when Ram is finally promoted for capturing Bheem, with the added clarity of why he wanted to be in charge of the Armoury so badly.
  • Load. Aim. Shoot. First spoken by Ram's father, teaching the revolutionaries to shoot. Then when his father is dying, telling him to kill the soldiers to buy the villagers time to escape. Then one final time, when Ram and Bheem kill Scott.
  • A lecture on the value of a bullet is given by Scott at the Gond village. Then in a flashback, he delivers it to Ram's father's Army regiment. Before he dies, Ram gives him the same lecture.
  • Ram and Bheem racing each other on a horse and motorcycle respectively during the opening rescue. They then ride the same mounts at the end when making the final charge towards Governor Scott's compound.
  • Bheem carrying Ram and doing push-ups. Ram carrying Bheem after the Dance-Off. Ram carrying Bheem on his shoulder after his flogging, and Bheem carrying Ram out of the prison.
  • The tiger that Bheem captures at the beginning of the movie comes back at full force when Bheem unleashes it along with a whole host of other wild animals during his attempt to rescue Malli.
  • The stricken look on Ram's face when Bheem is chastised for eating with his left hand makes more sense when you realize that his dead little brother was scolded for the same habit.
  • Bheem was told that giving his sacred rope to Ram would be unlucky. Sure enough, when the rope comes back into the picture, it's when Ram is apprehending Bheem.
  • Lady Buxton's special whip with the barbed wire. She is killed when an explosion throws her into barbed wire.
  • The movie starts with Mali doing henna for Lady Buxton, who's so impressed by this that she steals her. When Lady Buxton dies, the first shot of her corpse is her painted hand.
  • The drum riff that Ram plays during the party is the same riff that he bangs out to get Bheem's attention when he's dying of snake bite. It's also the same riff that Bheem taps on the prison ground to find his prison cell.
• Casting Gag: A curious example happens in the Japanese dub: Ram is voiced by Satoshi Hino, who also voiced Saito Hajime in the 2023 version of Rurouni Kenshin. In both cases, Hino voices a police officer fighting against the rogue protagonists of the story (Bheem and Kenshin respectively), while also being a part of the same system they despise (The British Raj in India and the Western-influenced Meiji-era Japan respectively) . The curious part comes with the fact Hino's role as Saito was announced just two days after the Japanese dub cast of this film was announced, at June 16th, 2023.
• Chain Pain: During Bheem's attack in Governor Scott Buxton's party, one of the officers tries to attack Bheem with a chain, to little effect. When Raj comes to arrest him, an enraged Bheem takes a chain of his own to fight, using it as a particularly deadly Epic Flail.
• Chekhov's Gag: During the montage of Ram and Bheem developing their friendship, Bheem is shown lifting Ram up on his shoulders while they exercise as a lighthearted visual joke. Much later in the film, it is employed again when Bheem rescues Ram from prison, and the two have to fight their way out while Ram is too injured to walk.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • If someone is seen tranquilizing and capturing a tiger near the beginning of the movie, the captured tiger must be released later in the movie.
  • Bheem's Gond tribal culture is practically a Chekhov's Armoury - he fashions a traditional bracelet for Jenny to give to Malli, which acts as his calling card; Lacchu claims that Western medicine can't treat the snake bite he inflicts on Ram, but Bheem knows how to do it; and finally the rope talisman on Lacchu is identical to the one given to Ram by Bheem.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Ram and Bheem are basically superhumans who gained their strength through intense training. Ram repeatedly escapes being dogpiled by mobs of protesters and Bheem regularly wrestles with tigers and can tear metal poles off of their posts. Bheem even rescues Ram by ripping his metal jail cell door off of its hinges and fights the British using a motorcycle as a melee weapon.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Ram and Sita, having grown up in the same village. As preteens, they spent enough time together that Ram's mother already jokingly referred to Sita as her daughter-in-law.
• Children Are Innocent: Poor little Malli doesn't understand why she can't go home.
• Climactic Music: The Friendship song was already a great sound-track over the Good-Times Montage but it reaches epic levels during the Great Escape. Also doubles as a Triumphant Reprise.
• Les Collaborateurs: There are quite a few Indians enforcing British rule, speaking fluent English and dressed in Western clothing, or part of the Indian monarchies allied with the British. Ram is a member of the police force but is actually an infiltrator.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • The rock-thrower in the opening is somehow the only one wearing dark red among hundreds clad in dirty grey and beige, likely to make it easier for Ram to grab him (but not by a lot).
  • The bridge rescue is only able to get off the ground when Ram spots Bheem, the only guy wearing white, on the riverbank over 100 feet away.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: In a flashback, Ram's father Venkata counsels him on Quality over Quantity against the British. Venkata is a former soldier and skilled enough that he is able to pick them off one by one — at least until they blow off his finger. Ram was just as good as his father at that age and grows up to be even more skilled, able to fight his way through a Mobstacle Course and take out British soldiers and policemen.
• Contrived Coincidence: It's safe to say Bheem has a hell of a luck modifier.
  • Bheem falls in Love at First Sight with Jenny, well before he learned that she's staying at the same palace where Malli is being held.
  • While on the run from authorities, Bheem, Malli, and their allies run into Ram's fiancée Sita at a camp. She shelters them and tells them all about Ram's revolutionary background, which is what causes Bheem to return and free Ram.
• Convection Shmonvection: Subverted during the bridge rescue scene. Ram's plan involves grabbing a flag, soaking it in river water and handing it to Bheem, to protect himself from the oil fire as well as smoke inhalation.
• Crowd Surfing: A variant: after saving a little boy's life, Ram and Bheem are made impromptu guests of honor during a riverside festival, and get to be the top of a Dahi Handi, a competitive event where the participants build a human pyramid.
• Crucified Hero Shot: Bheem is briefly seen with his arms strung out to the sides instead of hanging from them during the public flogging scene.
• Dance-Off: The "Naatu Naatu" number is a dance battle between Ram, Bheem and the racist Jake. Ram and Bheem win the dance (as well as the hearts of the ladies at the party), then battle each other. Ram takes a dive so that Bheem can win and impress Jenny.
• Dance Party Ending: As is common with films from the Indian subcontinent. The song used is a joyful expression of Indian patriotism, with the principal cast (including, unusually, the white actress who plays Jenny) and the director calling on Indian viewers to be proud of India and its many cultures.
• Don't Create a Martyr: After Bheem's public flogging causes a riot, Ram advises Scott not to execute him in the city, as it would create a martyr for the people to rally around. He's actually exploiting the trope: by convincing Scott to hang Bheem in a secluded area, Ram can better execute his plan to free him.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • The first half of the film plays up the tension between Ram and Bheem by neither of them knowing who the other truly is, a police inspector and a revolutionary. And when the truth is finally cleared up, it results in a brutal and emotional fight between the two, complete with a Dark Reprise of "Dosti".
  • The final act of the film begins with Bheem meeting Ram's fiancé Sita, and she explains Ram's entire backstory without knowing that he's Ram's dear friend.
• Dub Name Change: In the original Telugu script, Ram and Bheem call each other "Older Brother" and "Younger Brother", but the English subtitles use their given names. Apart from downplaying their bond, it also removes the poignancy when you realize that Ram's younger brother was killed as a child.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Ram is passed over for a promotion even after navigating a literal Mobstacle Course to arrest one man, and single-handedly stopping said mob.
• Elemental Motifs: In their respective prologue scenes, Ram is associated with fire (being scorched by a burning effigy while fighting through a crowd of protestors) while Bheem is associated with water (introduced while reflected in a tranquil lake). Since the relationship of the two forms the core of the movie, a lot of Fire/Water Juxtaposition comes into play.
• Equippable Ally: A major scene has Bheem running around with Raj atop his shoulders, combining Bheem's stamina and Raj's shooting skill to form a 10-foot-tall killing machine.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Both Ram and Bheem are introduced in scenes that establish them as very competent fighters: Ram fighting through a crowd to arrest a man, and Bheem capturing a tiger. It also shows their differences: Ram fights alone, stone-faced and is brutally efficient, while Bheem is cooperating with a team, looks a lot more like he's desperately improvising, and apologises to the tiger for trapping it.
  • In Jenny's first scene, she scolds a British guardsman for abuse against one of her uncle's Indian servants. This establishes her as a kind and open-hearted English Rose, in contrast to the rest of the violent colonialists.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Raj spots the fancy Indian paintwork on Jenny's car, and suddenly remembers Lacchu having the same shade of paint staining his nails. This leads him directly to Lacchu's workplace.
  • He has another when Bheem starts taking his holy thread off, and he recognizes it as the same one Lacchu was wearing.
• Evil Brit: As it's a movie covering the fight against Britain's occupation of India, there are a lot of them. With a few exceptions, most of the British characters with speaking roles treat the Indian people as savages and see nothing wrong with abusing them. Being the Big Bad Duumvirate, Governor Scott and his wife are naturally the worst about this, being tyrants who see all the people of India as potential property.
• Evil Colonialist: Nearly all of the English characters are portrayed this way, but especially Scott and Catherine Buxton, who are openly racist and shown no care for the humanity of the people of India. In the movie's opening scene, Catherine casually buys a child from a village for two coins and shows nothing but annoyance and near-boredom when her tearful mother desperately pleads for her back. It is in this scene that Scott Buxton also drops the "do you know how much the bullet in your gun cost?" speech that forms the strong anti-colonialist backbone of the movie.
• Faking Another Person's Illness: Realizing that the British officers raiding the camp she's at are hunting Bheem, Sita tells them that the people have smallpox. This being 1920, it's a believable excuse and they back off right away.
• Fighting Your Friend: Bheem finds out in the worst way that Ram is a soldier working for the British when Ram interferes with his attempt to rescue Malli and moves to arrest him. To say that the blows they end up dealing each other are harsh would be putting it lightly.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Ram and Bheem are introduced in two scenes titled "The FiRe" and "The WateR," respectively, associating them with those two Elemental Motifs early in the movie and bringing them back and multiple times.
  • The two meet when saving a young boy trapped on a small boat in a river surrounded by the burning wreckage of a train.
  • Later, when Ram reveals that he is an officer to Bheem in the attack on the governor's mansion, the scene is framed by burning wreckage and an elaborate fountain. When the two decide to fight, Ram is framed by fire and several boxes worth of fireworks that got accidentally set off, while Bheem is framed by the spraying hoses of the fountain.
  • In the movie's climax, Ram fights the governor's special forces with flaming arrows, while Bheem attacks them with a sneak attack by jumping out of a river.
• Fingore:
  • In a flashback, an English soldier blows off one of Venkata Rama Raju's fingers, rendering him unable to fire back at them until his son steps in.
  • There's a bitter case of rhyming history when Ram is forced to break Lacchu's finger when interrogating him.
• Force and Finesse: Downplayed. Both protagonists are Strong and Skilled, but Ram tends to favour more precise, technical combat methods and styles while Bheem is more likely to resort to pure brute force.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Ram staggers into the street while Bheem and his brothers are preparing for the assault at the Governor's house. He's out of focus in the background.
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: A blink and you'll miss it part of the Good-Times Montage is when Ram and Bheem play in a girls vs boys tug-of-war.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Buxton had been expecting to trigger fear and submission from the Indian populace with the public flogging of Bheem. Instead, it incites a violent riot with way more British casualties than he'd intended.

• Good-Times Montage: After saving the boy from the river, Bheem and Ram are shown becoming fast friends through a montage. The scene is fun and heartwarming, but there's also an undercurrent of tension throughout the whole montage, as neither man knows that the other is actually his enemy.
• Hate Sink: The British Raj is played up to be as vile as humanly possible; with the exception of Jenny, they're all violently racist, authoritarian, sadistic, and every other flavor of evil. Even if the heroes weren't present, you'd be rooting against them anyway.
• Hellhole Prison: Zigzagged - the normal cells in the barracks are at ground level with a good view of the outside world, but the guards have the authority to impose their own inhumane conditions, like outright starving the prisoners. The solitary cells take the "hole" part literally, being holes in the ground not even tall enough to stand up in. And if that's not enough, they break Ram's legs before throwing him in.
• Help Mistaken for Attack:
  • Bheem thinks Ram is trying to shoot Malli when Ram was aiming at the soldier trying to kill Bheem, and attacks him.
  • A lighter version of this happens during the Good-Times Montage, when they try to help a goat into its pen. The little goatherd thinks they're trying to steal it and chases them across the field with his stick.
• Heroic Vow: Ram is revealed to have made one to his father as a child, promising to deliver guns to the rebellion against the British. It's the reason why he has infiltrated the British police. When he does get the chance to get a weapons shipment, he lets it go to rescue Bheem; thankfully, however, during the attack on the Governor's palace, Bheem manages to retrieve a cache and gives them to him. Later, Bheem makes one to Sita when he learns of Ram's impending execution, vowing that he will bring him back to her.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Bheem and Ram basically become joined at the hip after saving the boy from the river. Bheem outright calls Ram his "chosen brother". It's majorly strained when Ram is forced to apprehend Bheem, but they immediately go back to being best friends after Ram's fiancée reveals Ram's motivations and past.
• Historical Fiction: The movie is based around two real life freedom fighters during the 1920s. The two never met in real life, but the film utilises a window where their whereabouts were unknown to create a What If? scenario of them working together.
• Historical Relationship Overhaul: The plot of the film is a What If? scenario where Indian revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem - who never had any known interaction with one another - met and formed a friendship.
• Hollywood Healing: Ram gets his knees bashed so badly that he's unable to walk, but after Bheem applies some herbs, Ram is able to skulk, run and jump with no difficulty only a short time later.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Jake claims that European culture is superior and demonstrates European dances to "prove" it: tango, flamenco, and swing, which was just starting to take off by 1920. Swing originated in African-American communities, not Europe, and Jake's attempt at it gets a head shake from the black drummer.
• Indy Ploy: Bheem's hunt in The Water was intended to trap a wolf, but he and the guys have to make a few adjustments when they attract a tiger's attention.
• In Harmony with Nature: The indigenous Gond people are portrayed as living peacefully in the forests of India. A pivotal scene sees Lacchu goad a snake into attacking Ram, gloating that only his tribesmen know the cure. Bheem is Ram's Bash Brother, but claims that Ram's lofty revolutionary ideals are a bit beyond him. At least until the end, when he and Ram decide to learn from each other to build better revolutions.
• Inspirational Martyr: Ram realizes that Bheem became this for the people by making them revolt just by singing, exclaiming that Bheem made the people into a weapon instead of giving them weapons.
• Intermission. The film plays out as two movies with an intermission halfway through the runtime. The first half of the film is mostly Bheem's mission and reaches a natural climax when he leads the assault on the governor's mansion. The second half of the movie gives Ram's backstory and has less focus on Bheem.
• Invincible Hero: Played with. Both protagonists go through their fair share of suffering in the movie, but in combat, the only thing that can stand in either of their way is the other protagonist when the two eventually come to blows. The British security forces on the other hand are completely helpless against Bheem and Ram, getting mowed down by the score with no real effort.
• Ironic Echo: Ram quotes Governor Scott's speech about how English bullets are more valuable than an Indian's life right before Bheem shoots Scott with a British rifle.
• I Surrender, Suckers: During the flashback that depicts Ram's backstory, his father seemingly surrenders to the British, arms raised with no apparent weapons. But he actually has dynamite under his coat, which Ram shoots with his last bullet. Although that would count as a war crime in conventional warfare, the situation very much isn't so – and the British soldiers established a precedent anyway, by opening fire on unarmed civilians without warning and shooting children indiscriminately.
• Karmic Death:
  • Catherine Buxton forced Ram to use a barbed whip on Bheem during his public flogging. She winds up being killed in an explosion that flings her into a nest of barbed wire.
  • Her husband Scott follows immediately after when he's killed by the same rifle his forces have been using to terrorize the people of India with the bullet he earlier claimed was more valuable than an Indian's life.
• Kneel Before Zod: After Bheem is arrested and set up for a public flogging, the Evil Colonialist Buxtons repeatedly express a desire to see him kneel to the British crown and are disappointed and enraged when he continues to find the willpower to keep his knees from touching the ground, even when they bust out a spiked whip.
• Kung-Shui: During the storming of the mansion, Ram and Bheem do way more damage to the surroundings than each other.
• Language of Love: Bheem and Jenny barely understand each other's languages but still fall hard for each other.
• Leitmotif: Ram has a deliberately booming and ominous one, first heard during The Fire. It effectively hides how he's Good All Along.
• Made of Iron: Ram and Bheem both take pretty good beatings and punishments throughout the film and are still in incredible fighting shape afterwards. Bheem repeatedly gets hit with a spiked whip and is forced to support a huge concrete block with his ankles, while Ram only gets fed once a week during his months-long imprisonment and gets his knees beaten regularly. Ram is also repeatedly injured throughout the movie to the point of spitting out blood. Both can still run and fight despite all that.
• Make an Example of Them: Governor Scott's modus operandi; beating and executing any dissent terrorizes the population into submission. This is the idea behind publicly flogging Bheem until it backfires. Subverted later when Ram warns them not to turn Bheem into a bigger martyr by publicly hanging him.
• Maybe Ever After: While Bheem initially only got close to Jenny in order to infiltrate the governor's palace, they greet each other warmly in the movie's ending, possibly implying that they kept their genuine feelings for each other. However, as they still have a language barrier and a major gap in background and status, their future relationship is uncertain.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The angry mob at the beginning recoils when Ram stamps his foot.
• Motive Misidentification: Ram, for half of the movie, is considered a traitor to his own people, working with the British police to fuel his own ambitions. Then it's revealed that he actually infiltrated the police on behalf of the Indian rebellion so that he could secure rifles for them.
• Motorcycle on the Coast Road: One of the scenes in the friendship montage is Ram and Bheem taking a motorcycle and a horse for a ride down a curving lakeside road as the camera pans from different angles.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: India is occupied by the British and governed as the British Raj, who abuse the local population. Already by 1920, nationalist feeling has swept India as in real life. The movie shows the start of a nationalist revolution against the British Raj triggered by Bheem and Raj's example, implying that they've begun their guerrilla wars against the British as in real life.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Apparently this is a Charles Atlas Superpower for Raj.
  • When Raj finally tracks down Lacchu at the car detailing garage, Lacchu flees in a panic out the back door... where Raj is already waiting for him.
  • After losing the mansion key, Bheem has to go up the wall and over the roof to reach Malli - where he's immediately blindsided by Raj despite a massive headstart.

• Oh, Crap!: Ram just closes his eyes in resignation when his cover is blown by a sergeant saluting him on instinct.
• One-Man Army: Eventually we get a two-man army when Ram and Bheem effortlessly take down platoon after platoon of British soldiers and policemen after they finally join forces in the climax.
• Police Brutality: The Indian Imperial Police are the main antagonists of the film and subject the Indian population to extreme brutality, from using drawn-out beatings as punishment for minor offenses, to downright medieval methods of solitary confinement and public flogging with whips studded with barbed wire. At times, the colonial police seem to be waging war against India itself and act more like an occupying army than a police force.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The occupying British forces openly abhor the Indian people, treating them as servants at best and filth at worst.
• Posthumous Character: Ajay Devgn is third-billed but his character is already dead at the start of the story.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Once Ram is captured, Scott's aide Edward boasts that they've reduced his rations to once per week and he's probably begging for food. Cut to the cell, where Ram is doing pull-ups.
• Rated M for Manly: It's a film about two extremely macho revolutionaries taking down colonists with all manner of weaponry and methods, ranging from guns, arrows, and even wild animals. Often while shirtless.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: The motorcyle Bheem lifts and throws is the 56Kg Royal Enfield WD/RE known as the "Flying Flea" which was designed for that purpose (to be carried in an emergency, not used as a weapon).
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Despite the Fire/Water Juxtaposition around Ram and Bheem respectively, their colors are actually reversed in this case - Bheem is the rural salt-of-the-earth warrior with the shorter temper, and Ram is The Stoic Cold Sniper who's been keeping a secret about himself for four years.
• Rescue Arc: Bheem's motivation throughout the film is to take Malli back to her family.
• Rock Beats Laser:
  • Bheem is able to completely overwhelm the British soldiers and ransack Governor Scott's mansion with nothing but a pack of animals and two flaming torches.
  • In the film's climactic battle, Ram and Bheem take out policemen on motorcycles and British soldiers with a bow and arrow and a spear. They do mix it up a bit, such as by launching arrows with grenades on them.
• Savage Spiked Weapons: Catherine Buxton's cruelty and sadism becomes well-established when she orders Ram to beat Bheem with a spiked whip just so she can see the latter kneel before her.
• Scenery Porn: There's no small amount of this in the Good-Times Montage, from the rolling hills to the coastal road with the horse vs bike race.
• Shipper on Deck: Bheem is this to Ram and Seeta, even before he meets her, as he likes the name. Ram is obviously this to Bheem and Jenny, helping them meet up in the first place and calling Jenny Bheem's girlfriend.
• Ship Tease: Though nothing comes of it onscreen, Bheem and Jenny are genuinely attracted to each other even though they don't speak each other's languages.
• Shirtless Scene: Both of the leads get this treatment early on - Ram vs a punching bag in the gym at the end of The Fire, followed by Bheem in just a loincloth when hunting in The Water.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The real Alluri Sitarama Raju was executed at the age of 25. Ram here is implied to be in his 30s as he spent 15 years rising up the ranks of the British police, and despite his eventual imprisonment, he escapes and survives the movie. The same can arguably apply to Bheem, who also survives the movie hale and hearty despite being historically killed in battle later on.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Bheem and Jenny really do love each other, but Bheem being an Indian village leader disguised as a city commoner and Jenny being a British aristocrat means that they can't actually be together. They also suffer from a natural language barrier.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Several, unusual for an Indian action movie.
  • Although both protagonists are Made of Iron, taking physical damage of any kind visibly tires them and it takes a while for them to recover from injury, rather than immediately shrugging it off.
  • Ram nearly dies from and suffers the full effects of a Banded Kris's snake bite, making him unable to speak for a while. When he tries to move again, he quickly passes out on the floor. The antidote also takes quite a while to make and take effect.
  • Despite the presence of Gratuitous English as standard in Indian films, Jenny and Bheem sincerely cannot understand each other at all as they don't speak the other's language. Instead, they rely on facial expressions, physical gestures, and lip reading.
  • The hyper-energetic dance routines typical to Bollywood choreography is extremely exhausting, with Ram and Bheem challenging Jake to a dance-off based on who can keep dancing. It also tires everybody out, with Ram forced to carry Bheem afterwards as Bheem can't feel his legs.
  • The British girls at the garden party all cheer for Ram except for Jenny, as Ram speaks fluent English and is visibly more Westernized than Bheem, who only got a makeover a few hours ago.
  • The animals that attack Scott's mansion kill indiscriminately. Bheem doesn't actually control them and avoids animal attacks on himself throughout the fight.
  • When running away from Scott's policemen, Ram and Maali have to stop and catch their breath a few times.
  • Ram tampering with the rifles of Scott's policemen doesn't mean they aren"t extensively trained in their maintenance as the governor's personal guard. One of them pulls out his own pair of pliers and repairs the fault to get his loaded rifle working again.
  • The constant and egregious brutality relied on by Scott to suppress dissent simply fuels more resistance rather than stamping it out. Bheem's flogging and defiant singing incites the Indians to revolt and attempt to free him.
  • At the beginning, the angry mob swarming Ram and making him unable to move also makes them unable to move, as they're all squeezed together so tightly that nobody can fight very effectively.
  • The police sweeps to hunt down Bheem, Maali and their associates are extremely effective and stop them from getting food and shelter. They're all nearly arrested if not for Seeta being in the right place at the right time.
  • Being a tribal figure, Bheem is unable to understand the power of nationalist revolution unlike Ram, and his men only go to the revolutionary gathering in Delhi to ask for help finding Maali, rather than expelling the British altogether.
• Taking You with Me: In one of Ram's later flashbacks, his heavily-wounded father blew himself up with explosives and a bullet fired by Ram to take down the British soldiers massacring their village.
• The Infiltration: Ram joined the British Police Force with the intent of rising up the ranks to gain access to their armory, giving the Indian rebellion the armaments that they need.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The final attack on Buxton's fort. Motorcycle at ramming speed up a ramp, plus flaming arrow hitting the motorcycle (setting it on fire after it's gained too much momentum to be stopped), plus the ammo dump the motorcycle flies right into equals BIG BOOM.
• Unholy Matrimony: Scott and Catherine Buxton are thoroughly nasty pieces of work, but by all indications, their marriage is a completely happy and stable one. Scott even mourns Catherine's death.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The audience has enough information about Bheem's plan to rescue Malli and Ram's plan to rescue Bheem to know they won't go smoothly.
• Was It All a Lie?: There are shades of this when Bheem finds out Ram is a policeman. First he desperately begs him to let him save Malli, and then asks, "You're one of us, aren't you?"
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Ram only joined the British armed forces to infiltrate them and secure guns for his village, but he still had to do quite a few terrible things while in there, including torture Bheem with a whip after he gets captured. He eventually begins to question whether it's all worth it, leading him to become good outright and join up with Bheem.
• Wham Shot: When Ram sees Bheem's holy talisman which matches Lacchu's, revealing to him that he's the man he's been searching for.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Jenny praises Bheem's warm, expressive eyes. Unfortunately, he doesn't understand English.
• Women Are Wiser: With the exception of Catherine Buxton, all of the British ladies are kindly to our protagonists, while every British man is a villain. And while there are numerous Indian collaborators, none of them are women.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: Governor Scott and his wife may be ruthless, bloodthirsty people who despise Indians in general but even they give credit to Ram and are willing to promote him to a commanding position if he captures Bheem. When Ram suggests executing Bheem in front of Malli, Scott even compliments him, saying that he has "learned the ways of the empire".
• Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: You get the feeling Ram, who has been considered a race traitor by his countrymen throughout the film, experiences this when Governor Scott compliments him for his suggestion to execute Bheem.
• You Remind Me of X: Bheem reminds Ram of his younger brother.

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"Load! Aim! Shoot!"