Kill (2024)

I always think trains make for a great confined, slightly claustrophobic, setting for a thriller and with the help of the very easy on the eye Lakshya proving he's pretty nimble with just about everything from a fire extinguisher to a bathroom sink, we set about trying to thwart the intentions of a group of thirty-odd bandits who board a train heading to Delhi and proceed to brutally rob the passengers. That was pretty much the gist of their plan until they discover that the wealthy "Baldeo" (Harsh Chhaya) is travelling with his family. Never mind scraping around for a few old iPhones and some costume jewellery, their enthusiastic young leader "Fani" (Raghav Juyal) decides to take them hostage. Now this is probably his biggest mistake as it turns out that the man's daughter "Tulika" (Tanya Maniktala) is the love of the life of our intrepid commando "Amrit", and when events unfold becoming more violent, and tragic, this unleashes in him a feverish desire for retribution that proves the training at the National Commando School of India is extremely effective. With his colleague "Viresh" (Abhishek Chauhan) travelling with him, and with the help of one or two courageous passengers, the two soldiers are hopelessly outnumbered, but hugely inventive. This isn't a film you go to see for the dialogue - there isn't really very much, and what there is doesn't really matter. This is simply an end to end, action-packed festival of acrobatic carnage that isn't necessarily the most realistic - I think in real life, everyone would have been dead from the deadly kukri blows far earlier, but Nikhil Nagesh Bhat allows the film to build the tension to quite a crescendo. Sure, some of the combat scenes are a little too choreographed and repetitive, and I doubt it would ever encourage you to want to travel on Indian Railways, but this is every inch as good as it's Hollywood equivalents. Be warned - the violence is about as graphic as it gets, but I enjoyed it and wouldn't be surprised if Lakshya starts to appear in more films targeted more at the West.