Kill (2023)

Despite some incredible fight choreography & a commanding protagonist, there are also issues - Kill review by TB

When The Raid was released back in 2011, it was a cinematic hammerblow. Although there had been thousands of action films in the last few years, the genre had become quite stale in many respects, especially in the explosion of straight-to-DVD garbage.

But after The Raid, not only did it reshape the action genre (as well as introducing pencak silat martial arts to the world,) but it spawned a whole movement of films deeply influenced/indebted to it. The most obvious is John Wick, but also Monkey Man, which even includes an Easter Egg reference to it. But it has to be said that these new stories have had very mixed results, and this continues with Kill...

It almost proudly wears it's Raid influence on its sleeve, as the opening shots show the same SWAT style vans pulling up & commandos jumping out, alongside the close-quarter & lethal hand-to-hand combat. We also have an extremely likeable & empathetic protagonist in Amrit, the impossibly chiseled & classically handsome lead who breaks hearts as easily as he breaks necks. Starring opposite him is Tulika, daughter of a wealthy Indian transport chief, forced into an engagement with a man she doesn't love & who only wants to be with Amrit. The two of them agree to meet on an express train & elope, but then a group of terrorists strike & Amrit is forced to fight to save himself & his new bride.

Despite the 3 stars, there are some great positives. The costumes & traditional Indian dress, alongside the cinematography & use of cramped/contained locations for the film are inspired. Full marks need to go to the design & costume teams for their work here. There is also excellent chemistry between Amrit & Tulika, as well as Amrit & his best friend/fellow commando Viresh. The fight choreography is, despite issues that I will speak about in a second, often incredible. The moves & pacing is amazing, with all of the actors totally convincing.

But there are also many issues here.

One of the biggest for me was the, at-times, totally over-the-top & extremely graphic violence, which is something other action films fall into the trap of, in that directors/writers think that other great films which have violence in them are good because of the bloodshed. For me, the opposite is true: The Raid is a great film because of its story & characters, not due to the often brief flashes of brutality. But Kill has a couple of genuinely nasty & misogynistic scenes of violence which were just too much, the filmmakers really revelling in the cruelty.

And on the subject of violence, another element which just stretched credibility so far it became stupid was the amount of punishment that characters took & were still able to keep fighting. One man was stabbed at least 4 times in quick succession, (after enduring many brutal fights,) but this did not affect him in any tangible way. Another was subjected to repeated beatings which would have slain a giant, but only affected him for a few seconds. So the result became like watching Teletubbies bouncing around in a padded cell.

And this is exposed repeatedly by the at times nonsensical & really frustrating pacing of this film. Many times, there will be the start of either an action scene or dialogue, then the film randomly cuts away/the scene is brought to a halt in some contrived way. So in effect, you are watching a film which is stop-start-stop-start. And this was massively frustrating for me. A common theme in my reviews is my acknowledgement at how hard it is to get a film made/off the ground, especially a micro-budget one, so I want them to be good. But when a film needlessly sabotages it's quality with stupid errors, it is really frustrating.

I give full marks & massive respect to Nikhil Nagesh Bhat for getting this production off the ground, but like with Monkey Man, the flaws are almost as big as the positives.