Kill Review: Over-The-Top Indian Action Pic Makes John Wick Look Like A Picnic

Kill (M18)

Starring Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, Tanya Maniktala, Abhishek Chauhan, Ashish Vidyarthi

Directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat

An army commando, Amrit (big-screen debutant Lakshya), brutally fights an entire family gang of knife-wielding bandits who take over a Delhi-bound train to rob and terrorise its passengers. Onboard are his girlfriend and her wealthy family.

We're talking violence porn, revenge porn and family porn here. The last mentioned is due to unique regional characteristics. Everybody in this large group of criminals is related in some extended-family way — sons, fathers, uncles, nephews, brothers, brothers-in-law.

It's mind-bogglingly fascinating. Like watching a family business at work while the relatives are murdering people.

“I killed four of your people, you finished off 40 of my family,” goes the cry of lop-sided inequivalence from the charismatically cruel main baddie, Fani (Indian dancer Raghav Juyal), spouting descriptive prose as a homicidal-comical V. S. Naipaul of villainy. “Wonder why everyone is a fountain of love today?” he crows.

Man, this tightly confined, lunatic-kinetic, ultra-violent Indian action flick, which makes John Wick look like a picnic, is so confident about its coolness that it actually splashes its single-minded title — Kill — only when it's about halfway through. (Interestingly, John Wick director Chad Stahelski will produce the English-language Kill remake.) 

Here's the deal. This Hindi pic about a big poor family vs a small rich family is slashingly thrilling. But if you're squeamish about watching even a nosebleed, skip this. Totally.

Imagine that memorable corridor fight scene from 2003 Korean actioner, Oldboy, stretched into one insane prolonged battle. Korean action choreographer Oh Se-Yeong (who was behind the mayhem in another train-set thriller, Bong Joon-Ho's Snowpiercer) co-helms intense hand-to-hand combat sequences in the narrow elbow-room-only train compartments here where only privacy curtains separate the very scared from the very dead.

Okay, that Kill title popping up halfway makes you realise that lean-and-mean working class hero, Amrit, a special forces captain, hasn't really deliberately killed anybody yet. Despite nonstop stabbing, slashing, smashing heads against toilet bowls and dangling people out of the speeding train, he's basically pulling his punches.

“If I'd met you on the battlefield, I'd bury you alive,” the soldier growls. Yes sir!

Only when the dude goes into berserker rage after a beloved someone gets offed, do we see him go next-level Rambo to terminate folks in meaningful earnestness. Including shoving a can of lighter fluid into one poor sod's mouth to turn him into a flaming head like Ghost Rider's. While utilising the full range of lethal weapons on display from sickles to choppers to a handy face-bashing fire extinguisher.

FYI, that offing of a dearest one is the best forlorn farewell seen in a while. A Bollywood-class mini-melodrama of slo-mo murder with a handprint of blood plonked poignantly on a glass pane that's followed by a ruthless blade right into a lovely neck.

Amrit is aboard the runaway train — brakes tampered with, phone signals jammed — with his commando buddy, Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan), to derail — no pun intended — the arranged marriage to a rich man of his great love, Tulika (Tanya Maniktala). She's the daughter of a wealthy transport owner who's so powerful the invaders fear getting killed once they leave the train.

Which is where you see that, underpining this Great Indian Action Pic, is of course the Great Indian Class Divide.

I don't know if writer-director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat (Apurva) intended originally to make this tale so conveniently, glaringly, possibly discriminatingly obvious. He apparently was once on a train struck by armed bandits himself.

His relentlessly entertaining, visceral flick — a wet dream of OTT violent vengeance — has social class warfare written all over it like a bloody cheap suit.

Director Bhat seems intent on making equivalences between good and bad.

Both Amrit and Fani look physically similar in bearded terms. Both sides have the same reasons for savage payback - “Why did you kill my dad?” is countered by “Why did you kill my son?”.

The great thing about Kill is that Bhat gives abundant screen time to the perspectives of the bad guys.

The clear thing is you know where his allegiance lies. (4/5 stars) out in cinemas

Photos: Shaw Organisation