GOING NUTS FOR "NAATU NAATU": RRR IN L.A.

L.A. is the movie town, but even those locals who practically live at the multiplex have never had a filmic experience quite like the one that unspooled on 3/1, as the sprawling, eye-popping cinematic experience known as RRR was shown at downtown’s Theater at the Ace Hotel.

The Indian film, a frenetic hybrid of historical fantasy, war picture, hardcore action vehicle, anti-colonial agitprop, melodrama, Bollywood musical, rom-com and practically every other film genre and trope you might care to name, was already the second-highest-grossing film in India’s substantial movie history when it won Best Original Song at the Golden Globes for the infectious “Naatu Naatu," which is up for an Oscar as well. It’s been viewable on Netflix since last year but hard to catch on the giant screen that its bonkers visuals demand.

The entry line snaked around the block as the sold-out L.A. screening—which, with 1,650 or so attendees, was the biggest look yet for the international hit—drew a deafeningly enthusiastic crowd that screamed like kids at a Beatles concert throughout. Director SS Rajamouli was greeted as a hero when he introduced the film, and again when he joined composer M.M. Keeravani (his brother) and star Ram Charan, among others, for a post-show panel discussion.

RRR’s title stands for “Rise, Roar, Revolt,” and considering the fervor with which the crowd greeted its rousingly violent response to British rule, you’d think the Raj was brand-new.

You can view the “Naatu Naatu” scene below, but you’ll have to watch the film if you want to see the guy fighting the tiger, the flaming arrows fired by a colonial officer-turned-avenging god, the two-handed rope rescue, the flaming motorcycle that blows up half a town, the guy fighting off 10,000 other guys with just a baton or half a dozen other indescribably over-the-top sequences.