Army Commando Amrit (played by Lakshya) gets word that his girlfriend Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) is engaged to another man due to an arranged marriage put in place by her father. In a desperate attempt to circumvent the union, he gets on a train where he properly proposes to Tulika and she accepts. Moments later, a gang of thieves led by Fani (Raghev Juyel) raid one of the train cars, stealing valuables from all the passengers. But when he recognizes one of India’s leading businessmen is on the train — Tulika’s father — their plan changes from burglary to ransom. Fani and his crew end up taking too many lives to make the new plan work and Amrit exacts a level of revenge.
We’ve seen plenty of profitable action films feature lackluster acting performances because, quite frankly, excellence in acting isn’t the priority of the genre. KILL features tremendous, believable — however unbelievable at times — performances by it’s main and supporting cast. Laskshya shines, Maniktala is lovely and Juyel is an incredible villain.
The action is well choreographed and the music is pivotal in the storytelling (which is always welcome) but, when you watch a movie, you want to get lost in it to the point where you forget that you’re watching art. Bad acting, plot loopholes and an overpowering score are all common ways to break the illusion that’s so important to the experience. So while KILL didn’t feature any of those, there were times in the second half where, as an audience member, I found myself asking “How many tickets did the bad buys purchase just to rob a train car?!” It wasn’t even that Amrit should be exhausted, it was the fact that they just kept coming to the point of distraction. Despite the constant hold-your-breath-for-an-hour-40 adrenaline rush, director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat would’ve managed to keep me completely in the zone if the production dialed it back by, say, 20 dudes.
Finally, the story between Amrit and Tulika is sweet and nice but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Better films boast something a little deeper than a love story between a man and woman wanting to be together. And, no, her family being involved doesn’t move the needle.
Look, were there interesting ways to kill people? Absolutely. Was there heart in the story? Sure. Were the performances up to par? Yes. But just because all that is true doesn’t make it special. At the end of the day, KILL is just the latest example of the “Extreme Action” genre made famous by the JOHN WICK franchise. If you enjoy relentless killing and excessive action for the sake of relentless killing and excessive action, you’ll love KILL. If you want more of a story and reason to care about the characters, go watch MONKEY MAN.
JKG SCORE: 7.0
Untitled Film Project 