“Kill” hits theaters this weekend: An action-packed, thrilling ride on a runaway train

Our interview with Indian director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat

Kill is a new film that hits theaters this weekend. It is the story of a train that becomes the battlefield of a life-or-death struggle between two army commandos and a group of brutal armed bandits after the bandits take control of the train. It is an action epic that takes place almost entirely in the claustrophobic confines of a railway train. For those of you who like the John Wick films, this film should be of interest. The fights are incredible and the cast delivers incredible performances full of charisma and emotion.

This Indian film is written and directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat and stars Lakshya,

Raghav Juyal, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya and Tanya Maniktala. I had the pleasure of speaking to Nikhil Nagesh Bhat about his cinematic and personal influences and how he balanced the demands of action and emotion in one of the best action films of 2024.

You can buy tickets here and the film will be shown at AMC Century City 15.

Dolores Quintana: Tell me a little about yourself.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: I am the writer and director of the film Kill, which is produced by Dharma Productions and Secure Entertainment and distributed by Lion’s Gate and Roadside Attractions.

Dolores Quintana: I believe the film will be released on the 4th of July, right? That’s just in time for the big American holiday related to the war.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: Oh, my goodness. Yes, of course. There is no freedom without sacrifice.

Dolores Quintana: That’s very true. The question you get asked most often, as far as I know, is: “Where did you get the idea for the film?” But as I understand it, this is your first action film. I wonder why you decided that now is the time to make such an extreme action film.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: As you know, I have experienced this and it was almost 30 years ago. I wrote the story sometime around 2016. It was very difficult to make this kind of film. But the story kept coming back to me. After 2016, I made two films. But this story kept coming back to me and I felt that I had to tell the story. I felt that it was so well received.

That was the first wave of COVID. I was locked in my house. There was so much uncertainty; there was so much fear because we didn’t know if Covid would ever end or if our lives would be like this from now on. There was too much fear, claustrophobia and uncertainty that plagued me.

I didn’t want to think so much because I was getting more and more nervous and everyone around me was wondering what was going to happen. I wanted to find a way to let all these feelings out and channel them. It was only natural that I started writing this because it came to me and it didn’t occur to me at the time. It only occurred to me later and I realized that all my insecurities, my fear, my claustrophobia, everything you know, were transferred onto the paper.

Dolores Quintana: I also wanted to ask because the film is very emotional and painful. I’m not talking about the pain you feel when you get hit by a gun. The characters feel a lot. After the screening, there is a very poignant sadness in the film, and it’s not just the main characters. Usually in this type of film, the only ones who really feel this kind of pain are the good guys.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: Yes.

Dolores Quintana: I thought it was something that really stood out from a lot of other films in this subgenre. It gave everyone a chance to feel and to mourn a lot of characters that wouldn’t normally be mourned. Was that part of the process? Did that have to do with your execution of the feelings you were wrestling with during Covid?

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: I’ll be very honest. I’m very inspired by James Cameron’s Aliens. I found that film to be a story about two people who don’t understand each other. I’m talking about the character Ripley and the character of the alien queen. The alien was trying to survive and protect her children and the same goes for Ripley, who was trying to protect the child. So it’s two mothers fighting.

I watched the film over and over again. When I was writing this story, I was mainly dealing with aliens. I thought that in order to make the audience feel that the story is believable and so real, I had to create real emotions, and these cannot just be one-sided emotions. I want the audience to empathize with the antagonists and the predators.

I also wanted the audience to feel like they were part of the journey, of being on the train. That’s also the reason for this kind of action, because it feels very real and you get very close. When you see this kind of emotion coming not only from the main characters, but from different characters and from everyone, then their suffering is a shared suffering.

It is not something that is what is, which is not individualistic; it is a shared suffering. This makes this journey more realistic. To give you an example, the train they are travelling on is the Rajdhani Express, the most expensive train in India. The price is equivalent to what you would pay for a plane ticket. Normally, the railways in India are used by the masses. So normally, the tickets are not that expensive. But this particular train, only the wealthy can afford.

The character Fani is funny and works at a gas station. All the other characters who are robbers are in similar situations. They’re just trying to make a living. So there’s a class divide and I didn’t want that to be blurred. I wanted people to think they’re real people because that’s ultimately why they’re doing it. What they’re doing isn’t right, but they’re doing it to survive.

Dolores Quintana: That’s a really important aspect of the film too. Usually the people who are considered criminals in these films are often poor or disadvantaged in some other way and are always portrayed as villains. That’s a really humanizing aspect of your script and the portrayals that really show that all of these people are human beings. That gives the film a depth that a lot of films of this type don’t have.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: What’s really interesting is that this humanizing aspect comes from the influence of an alien film.

Dolores Quintana: I think that’s a good point, because that’s actually something that’s been on my mind for a long time when it comes to aliens; in the Alien film series, our sympathy is obviously with humans. Yes. But what about the aliens? You know, they’re living beings too.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: They are living creatures too. Yes. They just look a little dangerous. That’s OK.

Dolores Quintana: Yes, they are very dangerous. I was at Beyond Fest and I was at the Kill screening last night and I was so excited to see the film again. You mentioned something that happened at Beyond Fest in the middle of the film: the Kill chant.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: Oh my God. It was incredible. It was totally true to its name.

Dolores Quintana: I was wondering what you thought about it, because you even mentioned it. It’s been months.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: I can’t describe the feeling because, and to be completely honest, I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t talked about too much. The first time I saw the film was in Toronto last year, it was its world premiere. I was sitting in the audience and I started watching it and when the film started, I felt like every shot was bad. Every note was bad. I could just see problems in every single shot and I started sinking in my seat.

I thought, “Oh no, I shouldn’t have brought that movie.” Then people started buying the movie and they started reacting. I heard gasps and ahs and ooos. Then I got a little more confident. Oh yeah, people like the movie. Then at Beyond Fest, people were singing about it. I was too overwhelmed. I found it very, very unreal and it just felt very surreal. That whole feeling was just out of this world. I felt really, really good.

Dolores Quintana: I’m glad to hear that, because as a viewer I can tell you that the audience was overjoyed. They were thrilled. They wouldn’t have done it for any other reason than because they liked the film.

I wondered what it was like to juggle the needs of the plot and everything else you have to do as a director,

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: When I started prepping for Action, we worked on it intensely for almost nine months because we didn’t know that it was my first time doing action. My producers were my first time doing action. My cinematographer was action. Except for my action choreographer, nobody else in my team had ever done action. So we did a lot of prepping but at some point I realised that I was getting too caught up in the process because it was overwhelming me. It’s almost like a black hole; you keep doing things and you don’t know how and to what extent you can keep working towards it, which is a great thing. A few days before the shoot, I told my assistant director Rishab that I had to get out of the process because it was consuming me too much.

I have to start focusing on the emotional aspect of the film because that is the main film. The action is just a byproduct of the emotional turmoil that the characters go through because a lot of relationships are tested in this 2.5 hour journey. That’s what I wanted to pay attention to. That’s when I stopped thinking about the action for a while and started thinking only about the emotional aspect of the characters.

That’s how I balance it while shooting. I was very, very conscious of that when I was writing because it comes from a personal experience, when I watch an action movie and if it’s just one action after another, I just don’t feel involved. I didn’t want that. I built up a very, very strong emotional situation. Even after the action sequence, there is a very strong emotional situation.

So what happens when you’re watching as an audience member? You get caught up in that emotion, you get caught up in the characters and in yourself, and then when the action starts, you think, “Oh wow, this is such a great thing. It takes you on a whole different journey. But what catches you is the emotion.”

Dolores Quintana: I really think that’s very important in any kind of film because without human emotion you have nothing. That’s how you build a real connection with the audience. But I was just wondering if you’re working on something right now.

Nikhil Nagesh Bhat: Yes, I am. I am currently writing a mythological action film based on Indian mythology. The story is set around 10,000 years ago. Yes, I hope if the film does well and does well at the box office like I am doing now, I will do Kill 2 in the future.