Midway through my conversation with Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, the Kill director relates a story of growing up in ordinary middle-class Patna. “There was a dacoit who used to visit my locality,” he begins, like someone recalling an avuncular traveling salesman bringing exotic toys. “We kids used to play cricket and he would arrive with three truck-loads of people bearing 50 rifles.
And he would politely climb down and ask us, “Can I bat?’” This thrilling memory—recounted with evident fondness and time-tempered wisdom by Bhat—is of a piece with Kill , a cracking Hindi action film that draws its power from a potent source: the chilling, hair’s breadth closeness of violence and criminality to everyday life in India. Released in theatres on July 5, the film features debutant Lakshya as an NSG commando pounding dacoits on an express train. Though a spine-tingling, crowd-pleasing genre piece, Kill has its rivets in reality, like the time Bhat dozed through an actual train robbery in 1995 (a similar scene takes place in the film, with two RPF constables waking up late to the unfolding calamity).
In an interview with The Hindu , Bhat spoke about the complex reactions to his film, his influences ranging from James Cameron’s Aliens to 1960s Spaghetti Westerns, and “tasting blood” as an action filmmaker. Excerpts..
. ‘Kill’ premiered in the Midnight Madness section at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2023 and also showed at Tribeca earlier this year. A fest.