It is a fictional story about two Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju (Charan) and Komaram Bheem (Rama Rao), and their fight against the British Raj.
Rajamouli came across stories about the lives of Rama Raju and Bheem and connected the coincidences between them, imagining what would have happened had they met, and been friends. Set in 1920, the plot explores the undocumented period in their lives when both the revolutionaries chose to go into oblivion before they began the fight for their country.
This is the director's dream about two revolutionaries who never met but might have been besties if they had. As we'd expect from the director of Eega and Baahubali, it has great choreography for singing and action, exciting dances, and a lot of heart. It delivers an over-the-top bromance the likes of which would be hard to top. It also embodies personal sacrifice and love of country, naturally, since these are celebrated revolutionaries who fought for India's independence.
The over-the-top aspect also applies to the depictions of the British Raj which, to be fair, we've seen matches in some other South Indian films. The Raj are usually like the Nazis in our own movies — big, bad, and making you long for their demise.
We could tell that Ram and Bheem were destined to be best friends from the moment they used sign language to set up a complicated plan to save a little boy. They were already reading each other's minds. From there it's an action packed movie that didn't quit entertaining for three hours.
I liked the way the director's imagination put these two together in a completely imagined story that still kept the essence of who they are and why they are admired. In that way it made me think of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter which took an absurd premise and delivered a fun movie which was still respectful treatment of the American legend.
We saw this at a local AMC where it was showing in the original Telugu or dubbed Hindi, both with English subtitles. Of course we picked Telugu so we could hear the actors' own delivery. There was a small Indian audience with us and that made it more fun. Later we went for Indian food (of course) where our waitress said she'd seen it and proudly proclaimed, "That movie is in my language! Telugu!" It was a wonderful theme evening.
Rating — Introduction to Tollywood (come on in, the water's fine!) This one is more like a WWII Nazi movie in some ways than a purely Indian movie. If you like those, then give this one a try. Technically this is "Tollywood" not "Bollywood" since it is from South Indian cinema using the Telugu language.
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