Kill (18)

Army commando Amrit is in love with sweetheart Tulika but her father Baldev Singh Thakur, owner of the Shanti Transit company, has already decreed that she will marry another man to solidify his business empire. Amrit and army buddy Viresh board the same train bound for New Delhi as Tulika and her family, determined to derail the engagement. The military heroes are blissfully unaware that a gang of vicious knife-wielding bandits led by sociopath Fani have also boarded the train.

LondonNet Film Review

Kill (18) Film Review from LondonNet

Death and dismemberment on a grand scale have been in fashion this year. First, we waded through Dev Patel’s hyperkinetic directorial debut Monkey Man, which gleefully fused John Wick and Slumdog Millionaire including myriad close-ups of sharp objects piercing extremities. Then, we experienced the copious blood and entrails of writer-director Moritz Mohr’s Boy Kills World featuring a stomach-churning fight sequence with a cheese grater that left me glimpsing the screen through interlocked fingers…

Now we board the aptly titled Kill, a breathlessly staged Hindi-language action thriller that manages to increase tempo and the slaughter over a physically exhausting 104-minute train journey to New Delhi. There is no room in Bhat’s runaway script, co-written by Ayesha Syed, for gooey sentimentality or preconceptions. In a jaw-dropping early scene, one lovable character who we presume to be safe is casually slain with a knife to the stomach and flung to the ground to bleed out while chaos whirls around them.

Our disorientation escalates as the body count rises at dizzying speed including the demise of more central protagonists and the very real possibility that muscular leading man Lakshya will be dead on arrival at the terminus. This level of unvarnished brutality is a shock to the system since everyone is clearly expendable. Action sequences are impeccably choreographed and spare no expense with make-up and visual effects to break limbs in close-up and smash heads against every conceivable fixture and fitting of a train carriage. Strong stomachs are required.

Swaggering army commando Amrit (Lakshya) is in love with sweetheart Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) and intends to go down on bended knee. Unfortunately, her father Baldev Singh Thakur (Harsh Chhaya), owner of the Shanti Transit company, has already decreed that she will marry another man to solidify his business empire. Amrit and army buddy Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) board the same train bound for New Delhi as Tulika and her family, determined to derail the engagement.

The military heroes are blissfully unaware that a gang of vicious knife-wielding bandits led by sociopath Fani (Raghav Juyal) have also boarded the train and intend to terrorise the innocent passengers. Once Fani and his thugs including hulking brute Siddhi (Parth Tiwari) enact their callous plan, panic spreads through the locomotive and Amrit and Viresh plot a forceful response.

Kill repeatedly shows casual disregard for human life (innocent or otherwise) in service of pulse-quickening thrills. Lakshya is a charismatic protector of the innocent, whose moral compass loses all sense of true north in the face of extreme provocation. The endless barrage of violence becomes numbing and when one terrified henchman screams “Who kills like this?” at Amrit, we fully understand his incredulity. Overkill would be a more fitting title.

– Kim Hu