Review of "Kill": A Train, Two Commandos, and Forty Thieves Make for a Gory Action Extravaganza

 What happens when you introduce the "Snowpiercer" fight choreographer to the world of Indian genre filmmaking? An extremely powerful martial arts film directed in Hindi by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat.

When Indian director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat slept off on a cross-country train voyage years ago, he woke up to find that the cars next to his had been looted by armed bandits, or "dacoits." The heist wasn't too severe to the point where it would have woken him up, but it did make the helmer wonder what a truly horrific train raid would entail. The movie "Kill," in which a group of about forty robbers board a train with the intention of stealing watches and phones from passengers, and then go all out after encountering two ruthless commandos, is the solution.

"Kill" is as violent a movie as the nation has ever made, a startlingly gory action showcase from a genre that usually plays violence in a more cartoonish register. All things considered, "Overkill" would have been a better title given how seriously Bhat takes every confrontation and how he uses it to exact the greatest amount of revenge. It's the kind of film where the audience bursts in cheers when handsome Amrit (Lakshya, star of "Porus") breaks a hapless thug's skull into dog food with a fire extinguisher, brilliantly posing the question: Does this constitute as "excessive" if the audience is yearning for more?

With the exception of a short prologue in which Amrit races across the nation to ruin childhood sweetheart Tulika's (Tanya Maniktala) engagement celebration, the whole film is set aboard a packed train headed for New Delhi. If things had gone differently, this could have been a romantic trip. Pulling Tulika into a restroom, Amrit closes the door and gets down on one knee to make a better proposal to the engaged woman.

The couple was staring at each other in the bathroom when they noticed that thieves had broken into the other compartments, which are separated from one another by corrugated metal sliding doors. The passengers begin to fear when the dacoits brandish their weapons, which are mainly knives and hammers intended more for show than practical damage. Fani, the most malevolent of the lot, realizes that Tulika's rich father, Harsh Chhaya, is involved in the family business and believes that robbing the family will result in a sizable reward.

Until this point, intimidation has been their main strategy, but they didn’t count on the commandos, who’ve been trained in multiple forms of martial arts. Amrit and his comrade Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) feel like throwbacks to the early-’90s Steven Seagal school of action heroes. You can punch, stab or shoot them, and they just keep coming.

Paradoxically, everyone might have arrived at their destination unscathed if it weren't for the commandos' heroic overreaction, which transforms the dacoits from a bothersome nuisance into a superorganism out for vengeance: They comply with Fani's orders like a swarm of fire ants encroaching on the locomotive. At one point, the train slows down, and Beni, Fani's father (Ashish Vidyarthi), aboard and gives orders apart. Says the new boss, "Kill!" Says Fani, "Kidnap!"

The characters we care about are successfully kept alive (well, most of them anyhow) by these contradictory directives. The two commandos outclass the dacoits, even with thirty-six henchmen. For the next hour, the players tear through the sleeper carriages, ramming bodies into sliding doors, bunk beds, and, in one particularly spectacular death, a head-splitting toilet seat. They also swing knives. Though the film rarely looks out the windows, Bhat's inventive close-quarters fighting ensures that the setting never becomes old.

To name just two recent Asian action films, "Kill" and "Train to Busan" both fare better than "Bullet Train" in the unexpectedly strong genre of locomotive-driven films. The more obvious comparison is perhaps "Snowpiercer" by Bong Joon Ho. The same combat choreographer from the film, Se-yeong, is featured in "Kill." Oh, and getting back together with "War" partner Parvez Shaikh to perform its varied and ever-evolving action repertoire. Does it become boring? Only if you're searching for anything different from murdering people in the film "Kill."

The romantic asides are merely meant to detract from the bloodshed. Bhat believes the triggering incident must enrage the audience just as much as it does Amrit and Viresh in order to legitimize our hero's insane rampage. Although the entire film is sadistic, the violent act that sets it off is by far the most brutal, and it's made even worse by a few too many sentimental flashbacks. It's funny how these ought to appear more ostentatious than the unsettlingly realistic violence.

The number of dead bodies is almost as high as in "John Wick," since the foley artists crush more celery and melons than in a normal V8 processing facility. During the filming of this film, countless vegetables suffered in order to provide the rich sound effects. Consider this: What would make a good ending for a movie like that? It is irrelevant. Here, the goal is to do as much damage as possible while substituting the joy of the kill for the anguish of those memories.