Writer/Director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s blood-soaked action film Kill is the surprise genre film of 2024.
Like last year’s Sisu, KILL has come to own every other action film of the year. The blood-drenched film is a smart mixture of melodrama and bone-shattering action that will satisfy even the most ardent of action fans.
Writer/Director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat understands any great action film needs emotion at its core more than a clever setup, bracing action, and a hero to root for. Taking cues from the best action films (think Die Hard) KILL is about a man against unsurmountable odds attempting to save the family he has left. Amrit (Lakshya in his big screen debut) boards a midnight train hiding from his true love, Tulika (Tanya Maniktala), the family who has already arranged a marriage to a man of society. Amrit and Tulika’s plans to run away are cut short when 40 thieves led by Fani (Raghav Juyal) board the train killing anyone not compliant with their wishes. What Bhat has in store for his audiences is too perfect a setup to ruin.
KILL’s script is a finely tuned engine perfectly aware of what is needed for a rollercoaster thrill ride. Understanding, like Die Hard, that emotional investment is necessary before anything can happen. Those 40 minutes of investment in characters’ lives is the movie’s secret weapon and shows KILL knows exactly what it is doing. So much so the film’s title card does not show up until that moment.
That time spent setting up stakes, allows Bhat and his crew of artisans to unleash action in the form that we haven’t seen in some time. Never reparative and always engaging the film’s wall-to-wall action only stops to catch its breath the much-needed emotional release. The film is more akin to the very best of John Woo’s heroic bloodshed films where our heroes alternate from balletic action set pieces to scenes of emotional respite.
In the summer movie season with CGI, something or other aplenty KILL is the rarest of summer movies. One at a human scale that manages to thrill with its blood-splattered action as a man attempts not to save the world but to save HIS world. In that shift, KILL elevates itself to an event film without the need for special effects. Its action, story, and performances are the special effects – ones that require to be seen on the biggest of screens.
Writer/Director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s blood-soaked action film Kill is the surprise genre film of 2024.
Like last year’s Sisu, KILL has come to own every other action film of the year. The blood-drenched film is a smart mixture of melodrama and bone-shattering action that will satisfy even the most ardent of action fans.
Writer/Director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat understands any great action film needs emotion at its core more than a clever setup, bracing action, and a hero to root for. Taking cues from the best action films (think Die Hard) KILL is about a man against unsurmountable odds attempting to save the family he has left. Amrit (Lakshya in his big screen debut) boards a midnight train hiding from his true love, Tulika (Tanya Maniktala), the family who has already arranged a marriage to a man of society. Amrit and Tulika’s plans to run away are cut short when 40 thieves led by Fani (Raghav Juyal) board the train killing anyone not compliant with their wishes. What Bhat has in store for his audiences is too perfect a setup to ruin.
KILL’s script is a finely tuned engine perfectly aware of what is needed for a rollercoaster thrill ride. Understanding, like Die Hard, that emotional investment is necessary before anything can happen. Those 40 minutes of investment in characters’ lives is the movie’s secret weapon and shows KILL knows exactly what it is doing. So much so the film’s title card does not show up until that moment.
That time spent setting up stakes, allows Bhat and his crew of artisans to unleash action in the form that we haven’t seen in some time. Never reparative and always engaging the film’s wall-to-wall action only stops to catch its breath the much-needed emotional release. The film is more akin to the very best of John Woo’s heroic bloodshed films where our heroes alternate from balletic action set pieces to scenes of emotional respite.
In the summer movie season with CGI, something or other aplenty KILL is the rarest of summer movies. One at a human scale that manages to thrill with its blood-splattered action as a man attempts not to save the world but to save HIS world. In that shift, KILL elevates itself to an event film without the need for special effects. Its action, story, and performances are the special effects – ones that require to be seen on the biggest of screens.
Kill is Exclusively in Theaters JULY 4th
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