A movie theater would probably be the best place to see \u201cKill,\u201d a bloody Hindi-language Indian beat-em-up set on a train to New Delhi. The movie features a handful of visually dynamic fight scenes, choreographed by action directors Se-yeong Oh and Parvez Sheikh (\u201cFighter,\u201d \u201cWar\u201d), directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, and shot by cinematographer Rafey Mehmood. \u201cKill\u201d also features a threadbare plot and a few too many lulls between action scenes, so you might need to be seated before and focused on a big screen to see it at its best.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, these blemishes aren\u2019t so significant as to deflate the movie\u2019s prevailing mood. However, you might leave the theater wishing you cared more about Amrit (Lakshya), a one-man-army commando, and Tulika (Tanya Maniktala), a mostly defenseless woman on whose behalf Amrit creams a few dozen heavies. A rowdy audience and\/or loud sound system will likely give theatergoers the extra boost needed to keep this helium-light genre exercise moving.<\/p>\n
\u201cKill\u201d still feels long at 105 minutes. Produced by Bollywood figurehead Karan Johar, \u201cKill\u201d skimps on many of the flamboyant melodramatic touches that have come to define contemporary Indian cinema for Western audiences. Moreover, there\u2019s barely a conventional reason to root for Amrit as he tears through car after car of indistinct baddies. He meets but does not sweep Tulika off her feet after she celebrates her engagement\u2014to someone else. She wants to show respect to her father (Harsh Chhaya), who, like her fianc\u00e9, disappears too quickly to matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are additional supporting characters, like Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan), Amrit\u2019s best buddy and fellow National Security Guardsman, and Fani (Raghav Juyal), a brash young kidnapper who gets hung up on Tulika. They\u2019re ultimately neither so interesting nor as important as the sheer spectacle of watching Lakshya and Chauhan flip, tumble, and hurl themselves around various train compartments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oh and Sheikh\u2019s choreography gets a better showcase here than in their recent Yash Raj Spy Universe collaborations, like \u201cTiger 3,\u201d whose action scenes were more focused on action figure poses and computer-generated mayhem. \u201cKill\u201d frequently delivers the sort of action one might expect from a movie with an action-verb title, though one sometimes wishes that more time was spent with the train\u2019s many other anxious passengers.<\/p>\n
In theory, you don\u2019t need to worry about the generic setup that Bhat and co-writer Ayesha Syed provide. However, several dramatic moments, both major and minor,\u00a0drag when they should coast to the next big sequence. Even a handful of action scenes feel light and even look monotonous, partly given the limitations of the movie\u2019s primary setting. These set pieces tend to be brisk and engaging but aren\u2019t so relentless or intense that they\u2019re entirely disarming.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0brawl that comes about a half hour into the movie feels like a wasted opportunity, despite strong choreography, given the distracting presence of other commuters, who aren’t even cowering in the background but rather in close proximity to Lakshya and his opponents. Even a handful of crucial moments, where Amrit rallies or remembers why he\u2019s fighting, look more like well-mounted rehearsal footage. You don\u2019t need to be a Johar diehard to notice that an extra dash of melodrama is missing here, though his most recent rom-com, \u201cRocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani,\u201d is worth your time.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A movie theater would probably be the best place to see \u201cKill,\u201d a bloody Hindi-language Indian beat-em-up set on a train to New Delhi. The movie features a handful of visually dynamic fight scenes, choreographed by action directors Se-yeong Oh and Parvez Sheikh (\u201cFighter,\u201d \u201cWar\u201d), directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, and shot by cinematographer Rafey …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-1411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-movies","tag-action"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}