TL;DR – A bloody rampage of action that perfectly uses the medium of a train to tell its story of revenge.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Kill Review –

There are times when you want to sit down and watch a bloody action romp on screen. Fists throwing, legs kicking, knives slashing, and all that jazz. But what if you could get that and get something a little new that you have never seen before? Well, that is what we are getting today with one of the bloodiest action romps I have seen in an age.

So, to set the scene, Amrit (Lakshya) and Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) are captains and commandos in the Indian Army. When they return from the field, they find out that Amrit’s love Tulika (Tanya Maniktala) has been betrothed to another. Amrit and Viresh try to rescue her from the engagement party, but there are too many families with assorted weapons. However, the next day, Tulika, her sister Aahna (Adrija Sinha), her father Baldev Singh Thakur (Harsh Chhaya), and the rest of her family are taking an overnight train back to Delhi. So, Amrit and Viresh tag along, hoping for a better chance there. The only problem is that Fani (Raghav Juyal) and his extended family are also on the train, and they are about to rob it.    

Well, let us dive right into the middle of it and say that this is one of the best action films I have seen so far this year. It is brutal; you will feel and see every crunch of bones, every knife stab, and more. Seriously, if you have ever wondered how much foley can help sell an action film, then this is the one for you. However, one of the cool things is that this is a slightly different type of action than I have seen in Indian action films before. Looking at the credits, I noticed that there was a South Korean stunt team that helped with the production, and you can see that evidence in the final product. This meant that you had a melding of Indian flourishes with a Korean technical style, and that combination worked fantastically.

Another thing that helped with the action in this film is the setting. You would think a train would be a difficult place to set your action because it is all close quarters; it limits what you can do, and this is true. However, from limitations comes refinement. You can’t have a lot of big swinging gun-fu, which is common in a lot of Western action films right now. So, you switch to fists, legs, knives, and whatever else you can find. This creates an action style that is more brutal and aggressive than the more flowing action scenes that are in vogue. Also, the train makes for a perfect venue because all the sleeper compartments make for places where people can hide, creating ambushes that can come from anywhere. You and the characters are constantly on edge, wondering where the next attack will come from.

The next strength comes from the cast. Lakshya has an impressive physicality that is put on full display here from the first moment he walks on screen. You feel Amrit’s commanding presence whenever he is on screen, but he is not a superhero; he takes a beating throughout this film. I have become tired of action films where the action stars walk through them without getting hit once; this is not that kind of film. I also want to shout out Abhishek Chauhan, who has some of the best action moments in the movie, even after he had been stabbed multiple times. He might also be the winner of best moustache in 2024.

There are a lot of clever tricks they use to keep the narrative flowing in this film. One of my significant criticisms of Indian Cinema sometimes is how bloated it can get, not here. We get pretty economical storytelling because the important stuff is on the train, so you have as little set-up as you need getting from the start of that film to onto that train. Having all of the bandits come from the same extended family helped give a plausible reason why people wouldn’t just cut and run after the first person was killed and also why the violence continues to spiral. Also, they structured the narrative so that there are two different halves to the film, letting them employ a completely different style of action in the back half to make sure people don’t tune out.

However, I did have one big issue with the film, but to discuss it, I will need to talk about a critical plot point in the movie, so there will be [SPOILERS] in this paragraph. The incident that precedes the two different halves of the film is Tulika’s murder at the hands of Fani. This in itself did not have to be an issue. However, it did shine a spotlight on how little agency or even action the female case, even the main female characters, get to have in this film [bar maybe the two older ladies in the end]. But more than this, the way the murder was framed in the movie took on tones of sexual violence, which came out of nowhere. I know this was all about showing just how unhinged Fani was as a character and giving professional soldier Amrit the reason to change from incapacitating threats to killing people. But they took it one step too far, to the point where it was unpleasantly creepy.

In the end, do we recommend Kill? Well, if you don’t like your action films being drenched in blood and filled with the sound of broken bones, then this is not the film for you. However, if you want to see a no-holds-bar action romp through a train and back, with action moments that will have you gasping aloud every couple of minutes, then this is the film for you. Indeed, the whole stunt team should be proud of the work they did here. If you liked Kill, we would recommend to you Monkey Man.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you watched Kill?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 


Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Kill
Directed by – Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
Written by – Nikhil Nagesh Bhat & Ayesha Syed
Music by – Vikram Montrose, Shashwat Sachdev & Haroon-Gavin
Cinematography by – Rafey Mehmood
Edited by – Shivkumar V. Panicker
Production/Distribution Companies – Dharma Productions, Sikhya Entertainment, Rialto Cinema & Kismet Movies
Starring – Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, Tanya Maniktala, Abhishek Chauhan, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya, Pratap Verma & Adrija Sinha with Meenal Kapoor, Abhishek Chauhan, Calib Logan, Ashok Pandey, Parth Tiwari, Shivam Parmar, Akash Pramanik, Kashyap Kapoor, Saurabh Singh Chauhan, Bhupinder, Shubhranjan, Prashant Sitansh, Belal Shanu, Moses Marton, Anil Sansare, Vivek Kashyap, Ashish Shirke, Akshay Vichare, Devang Bagga, Mohit Tripathi, Subhan, Sameer, Riyaz Khan, Sahil Gangurde, Aman Waleski, Awdhesh Mishra, Sharuq, Shakti Singh, Manoj Diwakar, Rupesh Kumar, Manish Pandey, Nikhil Kumar, Yakub, Sajid, Bilal, Amaan, Ashraf, Faisal Sheikh, Jaswant Singh Jassi, Pramod Kumar, Mohammed Javed & Sandeep Sridhar
Rating – Australia: MA15+; Canada: 18A; Germany: na; New Zealand: R; United Kingdom: 18; United States: R