Things are not looking too good for 2022’s most expensive purported blockbuster RRR , at least in North India where it stands to lose ground due to several factors.Here’s looking at the pluses and minuses of one of the most expensive Indian films ever.
- Minus: The Kashmir Files factor: there is no respite from the raging storm that Vivek Agnihotri has created at the boxffice. It is being hailed as the Jai Santoshi Maa of this millennium. Released on August 15 alongside Ramesh Sippy’s super-blockbuster Sholay, Jai Santoshi Maa eventually made more profits than Sholay. Will Kashmir Files be the Jai Santoshi Maa in RRR’s destiny?
- Plus: RRR is one of the most eagerly awaited films in recent time. Rajamouli’s passionate mastery of the language of mythology has already been proven in Baahubali. There is no doubt that he would be equally successful at portraying pseudo-history in RRR.
- Minus: But are audiences interested in fictionalized versions of history any longer? The Kashmir Files proves the audience wants to know the truth about the past, not sugarcoated, fictionalized song-dance-spectacle accounts of history.
- Minus: The songs and dances that have so far been released have been received lukewarmly by the potential audience both in the South and in the Hindi belt. The songs of Baahubali were also not a craze, before or after the film’s release.
- Minus: NTR Jr and Ramcharan Teja , the two leading men of Rajamouli’s RRR, have zero market value outside the South Indian market. In fact Ramcharan tried his hand at a Hindi debut in 2013’s Zanjeer and failed miserably. As for NTR Jr, his marketing team has been circulating false reports of Bollywood offers from A-list directors for some time now.
- Plus: All it takes is content, not stars, to make a film a success. Baahubali and The Kashmir Files are two examples of content triumphing over face value. If RRR is strongly story-driven it will work .
- Plus: For the North Indian audience there are Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgan, both fresh from the success of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi now ganging up in a completely different context.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.
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