Indian cinema, and the way it is viewed in the West in particular, has been growing ever since RRR turned into an unexpected blockbuster in 2022. Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s latest Hindi-language film, Kill, is an explosive action movie that defies expectations and feels almost as important as that epic. It is produced by the nation’s dominant film business.
The pace of action is unrelenting. It falls somewhere between Die Hard’s one-man-against-the-terrorists lofty concept, Gareth Evans’ nonstop, beautifully choreographed ultraviolence in The Raid, and Yeon Sang-ho’s brutal, cramped public transport disaster, Train To Busan. These are the obvious analogies. It’s a clever genre experiment that’s visceral and confined, obviously informed by experts from across the globe, but it has a distinctly Indian taste.
Kill, which leans more towards a “masala film” style, opens with a dramatic twist: Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) is to be married off against her will by her father, a businessman (Harsh Chhaya). Her genuine affection, however, is with the valiant army commando Amrit (the unnamed Lakshya, who makes an appropriately Herculean entrance). Once the star-crossed pair confesses their love to one another on a swift train to New Delhi—a train that, unbeknownst to them, is soon to be taken over by robbers brandishing machetes—this initial schmaltzy tone, typical of Bollywood, becomes darker.
Even for experienced action moviegoers, the amount of violence in this movie is shocking.
Nearly an hour into the film, Kill begins to change from a more generic thriller to a bloodthirsty, brutal revenge film as soon as the opening titles appear, in the grand tradition of Indian cinema. When tragedy strikes Amrit, writer-director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat becomes even more focused. It could not be more straightforward: a commando is taking on terrorists aboard a train, and each faction is attempting to kill the other in gruesome ways as they alternately try to gain the upper hand. Who even needs a more elaborate plot?
Even for experienced action moviegoers, the amount of violence in this movie is shocking. Prosthetics are used brutally and effectively as flesh and skin are chopped apart, gallons of claret are spilled, and creative weapons are employed (keep an eye out for fire extinguishers and lighter fluid). Like Bruce Willis’s John McClane or Iko Uwais’s Rama, Amrit faces an army of seemingly unstoppable enemies and gets the absolute shit beat out of him. You’ve heard of Thomas The Tank Engine, but these men are actually built like tanks. However, the movie nearly always takes the action seriously and attempts to consider the toll that violence takes on its characters—a unusual reflection for a movie of this kind. Who makes such a killing?”Towards the end of his warpath, one of Amrit’s characters asks.
It’s not flawless: the few female characters are essentially viewed as plot devices, and the ensemble cast is nearly exclusively male and occasionally absurdly alpha. Furthermore, even though the action is well-choreographed and cohesive, it’s occasionally unclear where the characters are travelling when they change carriages on the train. However, in a film like this, which is primarily focused on the plot, that kind of stuff loses significance. As one might anticipate, kill is all about the kills. Welcome on board!
Kill is an action movie that is intensely violent and intensely breath-taking, beyond anything that has ever been seen in Indian cinema.