
Indian cinema doesn’t have a history of action film franchises. So, whenever a Hindi actioner comes up, trying to push boundaries, it is measured against its western counterparts. Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s Kill—before its release—was being presented as “India’s John Wick”. The director’s filmography till now has been a mixed bag (dark comedy series Brij Mohan Amar Rahe (2017), coming-of-age show Rasbhari (2019), social-drama Hurdang (2022), and the survival-thriller Apurva (2023)). Since Kill is Nikhil’s first foray into full-blown high-octane action, we open the conversation by asking him what he watched to learn the ropes. “I had already seen Atomic Blonde, John Wick, The Night Comes For Us and of course, The Raid,” he says. “But all that was before I put pen to paper. If I tell you what I was watching during the writing process, you might laugh.” We wait, anticipatedly. “Gossip girl and Grey’s Anatomy.”
Writing is tough. Nikhil says he avoids consuming the genre he is making during the creation. “I don’t want to remake what I am watching,” he says. The original idea for what became Kill was sown in his head back in 1994, when he was a student travelling in the sleeper class coach of a train, going from Patna to Pune. “I boarded at 11.30 pm and dozed off quickly. Sometime later, I woke up to a commotion outside. We were supposed to be at Prayagraj but the train had stopped near a small village, which was not a station. There were cops outside. Apparently 25-30 dacoits had looted an adjoining 2nd AC coach all night. They had a tip about a marriage party on board,” he reminisces. “My compartment had some soldiers from Patna’s Danapur Army Camp. When they heard about the incident, I remember one of them saying. ‘If we were in that coach, we would have shown them what Indian Army soldiers are.’”
Kill is about two NSG commandos, Amrit (Lakshya) and Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan), whose skills are tested when a bunch of modern-day dacoits infiltrate the non-stop train they are travelling aboard. The goons are led by the psychotic Fani (Raghav Juyal) and the disciplinarian Beni (Ashish Vidyarthi). There are no cut-out heroes and villains in the film, just warring factions mourning losses as the narrative gets increasingly brutal. “Aliens (1986) gave me the idea. It’s about two mothers (Ripley and Alien), trying to protect their progeny. We root for Ripley because the story is told from her point of view but there is no right or wrong side. It’s all about survival,” he says. “In Hindi action cinema, 15 to 20 goons die in a barrage of bullets and nobody cares. I wanted the audience to empathise with the dacoits as well. They did not come to kill anybody, they just wanted to loot. It’s just that things got out of hand.”
The film feels like a blend of two genres. For Amrit and Viresh, it’s a survival-actioner, but for the dacoits, it is a Western—their version of The Great Train Robbery (1903). Every time Ashish Vidyarthi’s Beni arrives in a scene, a banjo riff plays. “While I was casting for the dacoits, I was looking for prominent, distinct faces. It’s a very Western-like approach. I could not shoot Kill, like Apurva, with wide landscapes. It had to be inside a train, so all the Western influences were contained to the casting and the music,” he says.
The action in Kill feels very visceral and primal. It doesn’t exist only for the kicks and also functions as a narrative device. “The emotions drive the action,” Nikhil points out. The reason why he was adamant about writing and shooting the combat sequences himself and not relying on an action director. “It was important for me to jot down every punch, every kick,” he says. Renowned action choreographer SeaYoung Oh, known for Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer (2020) and Hindi titles War (2019) and Tiger 3 (2023), lent his services. “Mr. Oh gave a very valuable input,” says Nikhil. “In a crucial sequence, Lakshya’s Amrit was initially supposed to be at a distance from Tanya Maniktala’s Tullika but Mr Oh suggested that they should just be a glass-paned door away. It helped sell the emotion of the scene.”
Kill is one of the first no-holds-barred midnight gory actioners from the country. We ask Nikhil why it has taken so long for Indian cinema to create something at this scale. “Producers,” he says. “I am blessed with Dharma and Sikhya having my back but most producers aren’t willing to invest in a full-blown R-rated actioner. Another thing is to find the Head of Departments. I spoke to 65 DOPs before I finally got one.” So, is he done with action films for a while? “Nope. I am currently writing my next,” he says. “I have tasted blood.”