Kill Review

Describing Nikhil Bhat's action debut Kill as "India's most violent film" may be a gross over-simplification. A bit like calling the Mad Max: Fury Road a gnarly car chase through the desert. It hardly captures the breadth of all that the film is trying to say and be. Yes, Kill revels in its bloody excess - spliced necks, crushed heads, a spectacle of blood that surpasses recent action fare. But Kill is also an uncannily emotional ride.

Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) and her family, a rich and powerful lot, are traveling to Delhi on the Rajdhani Express when a 40-member gang of dacoits attack the first-class compartments, looting passengers at knife-point. Too bad for them, also onboard are two NSG commandos: Amrit (Lakshya), Tulika's lover who plans to elope with her, and Amrit's mustachioed friend Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan). As the dacoits launch a blitz through compartments, Amrit and Viresh spring into action.

But everything goes horribly and irrevocably wrong when Viresh kills a dacoit. It is the first domino to fall in a shitstorm of violence that gets unleashed as both sides - the Commandos and the dacoits - escalate their deadly game. What may have been a routine robbery - slowing down at a signal crossing, escaping in getaway vans under the guidance of their pacifist leader Beni (Ashish Vidyarthi) - takes a savage turn.

There is much perverse joy to be experienced in Kill's viscerally-mounted action sequences. Skulls are split open, fingers are crushed, and guts are spilled up and down the length of the bogies as Amrit, vastly outnumbered, faces off the dacoits who are forced to advance one by one along the narrow half-foot pathway inside the train. One is gagged with a fire extinguisher, another is ripped open like a parcel. The biggest one takes a hammer to his head, which is then drilled into his skull with a hockey stick.

Yet, even as bodies drop like flies, there's a reckoning with the violence. With each kill, the emotional stakes heighten, too. Despite Amrit's depraved creativity in dispatching the dacoits, the film appears to condemn violence as a corrosive force. Amrit, the lover boy who proposed to Tulika in a bathroom just hours ago, has vanished. The righteous Indian Army soldier who hesitated to kill, citing "this isn't the border", is erased, too. Battered and bruised, Amrit transforms into a relentless killing machine, his moral compass shattered.

The dacoits, stunned by the unfolding night, grapple with their identity, too. Ethical debates ensue: should they ransom Tulika's wealthy family to cover their losses, or flee the train? Beni, their leader, wants to fold. But his son Fani (Raghav Juyal), one of the main instigators of the bloodshed and the film's Joker-esque villain, mocks him for his cowardice. And in the end, the dacoits are inexorably drawn into a death-match with Amrit that neither side wanted but must now see to its bloody end.

Even the action sequences undergo a transformation as the night devolves, going from stylishly-choreographed fights to gritty, visceral gorefests. The confines of the train prove to be anything but constraints on the fight choreography. Tray tables become skull smashers, the curtains are used to hang bodies and the area by the bathrooms becomes a killing field. The rhythmic chug of the train underscores the cacophony of thuds, bangs and slices that make up the film's soundscape.

Lakshya portrays Amrit's transformation with compelling depth. He evolves from a romantic interloper to a determined action hero, and finally to a man utterly shattered. Raghav Juyal is a sensational screen presence, his swagger, sinister smirk and impeccable timing making Fani a formidable villain.

There's more than meets the eye in Kill. It stands out as one of the smartest action movies in the industry, a testament to the considerable talents of its filmmaker. Few guilty pleasures rival the satisfaction of a bloody revenge flick, especially when the characters are as thoughtfully crafted as these. This queasy emotional ride that unfolds with the unforgiving pace and certitude of the Rajdhani is one of the must-watch films of the year.