September 9, 2024 • 20 mins
Kill might be one of the rare movies that actually benefit from a remake—that’s how royally it fumbles both its action and revenge plot.
We discuss the film’s indecipherable approach to close combat, the lead actor Lakshya’s wooden performance, and the lack of inventiveness in the story.
We also talk about the unearned John Wick and The Raid comparisons, and wonder why international audiences seemed to appreciate the film.
—
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:16):
Hi, I'm Fiera. And I'm the one.
Welcome to the long take. This week, we're discussing the
action movie Kill, which is now on Disney to Hotstar after it's
like one in theaters. I think it's still running in
theaters by Nikesh, Nikesh Bhatt.
And it stars Laksha And, like, who's like, a new card to see, I
think because it's introducing in the credits.
Yeah. It's like what John Wick meets
(00:36):
raid meets bullet trains, something like that.
What do you think about? We don't, Yeah, that's what they
said in the marketing, right? They kept saying it's John Wick,
it's Raid. But then the movie kind of
fundamentally misunderstands what made John Wick and The Raid
good, because it's nothing like those movies.
Yeah, it's just like the, you know, basic thing is like you
have to get the action like as fluid and like as quick as it
(00:56):
can be, right? Like it needs to feel, every
head needs to feel like it's building momentum and that that
never happened. Yeah.
I mean, not only does it kind ofdo a sloppy job of the action,
it's also not really a very goodrevenge movie either, because
the movie needs to kind of ask some very pertinent questions
about why revenge, which it doesnot.
(01:18):
And so, yeah, I mean, it's a failure on both fronts for me.
I mean, I wasn't even enjoying it like viscerally so that I
could ignore all the, you know. Poor drama bits, yeah.
But yeah, and, and just, it keptgetting more and more annoying
because then I realized that also this is it, right?
It's not going to like level up or switch into, into a new gear
(01:41):
or anything. It's just going to be more of
the same, the same sort of action over and over again.
And until, yeah, until he eitherdies or, you know, kills the
other guy and I'm like, fine, OK.
Yeah, it struggles to get you invested in it or as it said, it
struggles to even deliver on like inventiveness.
That's what you need from like ayou're trapped in like a just
(02:02):
like a three by three box of a drain.
You need to like, you know, showme what you've thought of in
terms of like, Oh yeah, we'll start off with like the stuff,
but then we'll deliver like these sort of cool stuff that
like you and thought of like howwe could use like Lost or
whatever. Or like, you know, how they did
like go above the train and thencome down like they didn't use
that at all. It was just as of like to travel
from point A to point B. Nothing happens outside the
(02:23):
train ever. Like that's no one ever thought
of that or no one ever was bothered about that.
Actually, people just use it from a sneaky way to avoid
everyone and go from there. And like, OK, but I even inside
the train and never really like sort of goes beyond of like,
yeah, people are hurling things that you are throwing things
that you know you're dodging andyou're trying to like everyone's
stuck in one goal. Like they can't really move.
(02:44):
Like what's beyond that, right? You have to come up with new
ways to use the train kind of infrastructure, use the lack of
space to like do things that youcannot do with action, maybe
outside in like a general sort of scenario.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it got annoying as more and more
annoying as it went on. But then the movie kind of it's
befuddling, I think within the 1st 20 minutes, right.
(03:05):
And it's as early as that when you kind of start wondering if
this person has any sort of grasp over the geography of his
kind of stage, right. So you've choose chosen to set
this entire film on a moving train, right?
It's not the first way to do that.
But then, unlike all the other good ones, at no point did I
(03:26):
know where this person was in relation to the villains, you
know? And I think that's a major,
major flaw. Like any good movie set on a
train would let you know that this person is here.
The people he wants to catch arein the next compartment or in
three or like 3 compartments. Yeah, Yeah, I think he have done
only. Or does he use?
Those short, short ones where like they sort of zoom through
(03:50):
the compartments and they transport us from 1 comparator
to the next compartment. But like that shot needs to be
used a lot more often. That needs to be a transition
shot to figure out because you are you are using the whole
thing of like that sometimes thethe victims are trapped between
like villains on both side or sometimes the villains are
trapped by like these variation either side.
So that needs to be communicateda lot more because you
(04:10):
understand like, yeah, what are the stakes, right?
Like who is going where, who is trying to corner whom from
where? And because the last time it
happened, I remember when I got lost, for the most part I was
able to follow over when I got lost was that main villain
basically that funny. He gets off the train at some
point and then he gets on the train again and barely managed
his tool. He climbs at the at the end of
the train and I thought he was in the other side.
(04:33):
But then when he actually shows on big weight, he no.
So that just proves right that when you thought that you were
following along, you really weren't, because the movie is
kind of doing its own thing and I was still lost very early on.
Then becomes it becomes kind of frustrating, right, because
you're trying to figure things out that you shouldn't be
actually, right. Somebody should be coming and
(04:54):
telling you that, listen, he needs to in order to get the
girl, the sister. This is what he needs to do
beyond just, you know, where, where it's there's a reason that
it's not like a regular action movie.
So I don't really care about these things otherwise.
But since you're on a train, I need to know if people are in
the first class compartment and he's in the second class
(05:15):
compartment. You know, to get an idea,
somebody used to either see it or we need to see it.
And you know, like you were saying, it's not like he's doing
anything interesting with the geography either.
It's not like as the audience, you and I know that a tub
compartment beam A, there is a washroom where he can see, you
know, take refuge. So we want him to get to
(05:36):
compartment B. You know, it's not like we've
seen the house about rain control cursor, the lights off
cursor. So we want him to get to the
place where he can switch the lights off.
None of that so. There's also one, like, not very
defined. It's just like a vague thing of
Pele, like keeping Peleka safe for like the first party minutes
or whatever. And then when she's gone, then
it's like the movie almost like loses itself because it's like,
(05:58):
what do we do now for 10 minutes?
It's just like, let everyone like grieve or like be angry and
they're like, oh, wait. It's like remembers.
He has a flashback to the momentof like half an hour ago when
Peleka told him like, say my sister, like you, did you
forget? That which is just poor screen
writing, right? Because it's almost as if the
movie has run out of motive, motivation for this dude.
(06:19):
Do you remember that? Let's just throw that in
because, you know, it's not as like the other people are any
less important if you're like some sort of commando in this
situation. No, you need like some like a
girl that you personally know tokind of do the right thing.
You know, like, who knows? Yeah.
(06:42):
But then that brings me to, like, just this person as a
character. You know, the action is
terrible. We've spoken about that, which
is a, you know, not the greatestposition to be in if you're an
action movie. Yeah, but the the dude is.
Like he cannot, I don't know, he's like Schwarzenegger from
like the first movie or something.
He can't emote. And yeah, that's a big kind of
problem because the character isso underwritten.
(07:03):
Yeah. And even though he's given
scenes in the early going and you like you're supposed to
invest in this, their love storythat he's like trying to make
her runaway or whatever. And every scene in that, every
moment, that scene where he is wherever they are in Bihar,
Jharkhand, at her engagement. I'm just like Bhai Ek toh
Ricardo, facial expression key. You care for this moment.
Yeah, it's it takes a while to kind of figure out case, but
(07:26):
because for 1015 minutes he's like, you know, let's lay low.
Let's not, you know, do anything, just quietly get
through it, you know, But then when the inevitable happens and
she's killed, which again, like how many movies have you watched
when this happens when like the fridge a woman anyway, that
happens and then this. Then they do the whatever the
(07:49):
the title of the movie, like interval or something, I don't
remember, and then it kind of goes crazy.
This person goes crazy and then then it's like.
She just goes like he becomes like, like as bad as the villain
or like worse at some point because he's like he's stringing
up people from like the roof of the train.
I don't know what he's done. Objectively becomes worse than
(08:11):
the villains because the villains were they're robbers,
right? And we know that they're doing
this because this is what they do this he's supposed to be some
sort of savior protector. But then in the second-half,
he's like you said, he's literally like ceremonially like
killing people, like straying them up and like doing like
intimidation tactics. And he seems to like to go to
when did you do it? It's revealed as like this
(08:32):
grand, like, oh, look at what hedid, right?
Like Talibaja moment. But I'm like Hiccup here, isn't
he? He will.
He will look at our other villain while he's stabbing some
hench men, and then he'll stab them three more times in front
of the villain as if like, it's a personal thing.
And it might as well it it couldbe a personal thing, but there.
But like Rebel? Personal thing is like for your
(08:53):
the woman you lost, why you stabbing the Henshaw as if like
you know him personally, like you knew him from a previous
life and yeah he scored a team by Mario SK neck and.
Which goes against the the premise of the movie itself,
right, is that it's they kill this whatever, Cha cha cha, some
person, right? And it's supposed to be that,
oh, this dude just died in the crossfire and, you know, there
(09:13):
was nothing bursting. Yeah.
But then as the movie goes along, it feels more and more
like individually on these people she feels, you know.
Yeah. So it's, I mean, to the point
where the woman, like, dodged the bullet.
Like it would have been the worst life for her if she had
survived and had to live with this dude.
Yeah. And I was even like you
(09:35):
mentioned the fridging thing. I was trying to initially get in
the better doubt because you kept her around for like 40
minutes part like you killed heroff in the 1st 5 minutes and
then you know like she's just a stock character.
Like you at least establish her in some sense.
I can like feel like what she's sort of going to.
But it's when they start using her as like in flashbacks, you
know, these like 5 second like moments where like he thinks of
her dying or he thinks of their previous life.
(09:57):
Then I'm like, well then it's like frigging.
Because then now you're actuallyusing it as motivation or like a
reminder or her memory to propelhim forward in the narrative.
Yeah, yeah. So he's like turning back on it
as if, you know, the movie itself was unsure, kid, we've
kind of figured this connection out.
Or if you bought their romantic kind of relationship, the movies
(10:19):
unsure. So it's as much a reminder for
you and high as it is for this too.
Yeah, so to replay her that or her to replay her bloody hand,
like finger, whatever whole handprint on the glass door,
that stuff then becomes frisching because you're like,
you're releasing your character.You introduce and establish and
how they feel about each other to just like a character, like a
(10:40):
moment or some memory that propels them forward, which is
the issue. Then for me, which is just a
more annoying because then you kind of remember that you
yourself were the ones who told us that either John Wick, hey,
either John Wick and no, John Wick is the first John Wick was
doing more inventive things thanthis one is.
And they were like, it was hardly John Wick back there.
And then I just remembered that TK is not even a budget thing
(11:03):
right? Because the raid wasn't
particularly expensive. Exactly, that's why when I first
they do the whole it's gonna be like one guy against whatever
thing they established their 36 guys, the billion.
I'm thinking raid. I'm like, yeah, this is like
he's caught up in like instead of a building, he's caught up in
a train. It's the same scenario
basically. And he's to go from this to that
end and finish everyone off. Like Raid is so damn inventive.
(11:25):
Every sequence they figure out how to like.
And if you not, can't be inventive, at least then give me
like the basic thing, right? Like give me like almost like
pun intended to give me long takes.
Like, you know, just put the camera in the board and spin it
around characters. He's going at it.
At least then that way I feel the actor can do something or he
can hold a moment. He's beating up people.
You're not cutting from beat to beat because you're not
cheating. Whatever action you're doing.
(11:47):
There's not a single like one take sequence or whatever.
Yeah, yeah. No.
But this I observed because it'snot just it's not just letting
your actors down, you know, it'salso lending your crew down
because there are stunt people involved, right?
I'm stunt people, Khali come near to fall down and you know,
ram yourself into like glass or something.
(12:08):
You know, it's that they're performing the choreography
fully. So the impression I get is that
these scenes are all minutely choreographed, right?
So they've designed all these scenes and they've performed
them on set. It's just that Baad Mijak, if
for some reason you thought that, no, let's just chop it up,
which is baffling, right, then you're just like, then you might
(12:28):
as well have just shorted in bits and pieces.
Who goes? Because that's what it comes
across as on screen. It's just, it's very, very
weird. It's like you've got someone who
doesn't know how to make an action movie and you've told
them to make. Yeah, yeah.
They just feel that because likethey will take like things, you
know, like it's like we've been trained, right.
We've seen enough action movies to know how every shot needs to
(12:50):
feed, feed into the next shot. Like, you know, in terms of
sound design editing, like a shot length and everything.
So when you when you don't get that impact right in the in the
early, actually, it's only when,you know, when the robbers start
taking over the train and like pulling people and just like
throwing them around, like give us our valuables and these guys
in step. And I think Biresh is the first
to step in or whatever before I would it.
It's like the punches, you know,the way to hit and then the way
(13:13):
you need to part to the next shot of people falling down.
Like I'm not getting that, you know, feel of the momentum.
I'm not getting the trail out ofit.
Like, yeah, this is building to a crescendo.
It just, it feels like it's the Mr. then you took a half a
second extra, then you got to the next shot and then you have
then he falls and I'm like, no, I'm losing.
Like you know the the momentum out of it.
Yeah, I mean, because we're not like at least I'm not saying
(13:35):
that the John Wick style of action is the only way that
action should be done or can be done, right.
It's not that long takes or the only way that.
You can, yeah, because I would love to like even if you did
like a bond method of Paul, I would be up for that also.
Exactly right. We've seen how that works
equally well because that feels like you're literally in the
room with people who are fighting.
(13:55):
You know, yeah, like, yeah, like, let the camera do its
thing. If I can't see people, they're
blurred out. Like, at least I feel like, you
know, the energy of it. Like, yeah, everyone's being
pummeled around. Yeah.
Or use you like you said, use the sound to kind of make that
impact use the use the cuts yeah, you to your advantage
instead of masking things here. It feels like Lakshy action,
action Karathas and action Archers and Akia.
So now you're like cutting around him.
(14:17):
You know, which is what they do with nepo babies when they can't
hold a close up, you know, like,Oh my God, Oh my close-ups.
Any a picture man, because that person couldn't perform.
So now cutting to reaction shotsor like this that, whatever.
It feels like that's the approach they took with this
move and it's all heightened because the villain dude is
(14:37):
actually doing a good job, right?
So he's like chewing up the scenery and everything.
And this guy is like, which is just like, oh, like moving
around. Like it's like, Oh my God.
So it feels like the movie was when they made it, it was in,
they were in such a bad positionto kind of rescue it from
itself, not only on like a performance front, but like on
(14:59):
an action front and just like a storytelling.
The whole thing feels like it was made on the edit table.
And they obviously didn't get away with it.
Didn't obviously have the tasty or like even the desire to be
like, Oh no, let's just kill it and shoot it.
They kind of, if anything, the the expectations that they kind
of raised were unjustified, right?
(15:21):
Because not only is this this all we got like US distribution,
which is rare, you know, and then it got like, ironically
enough, from the John Wick guys remake deal.
Yeah. And all this happened before the
release. So.
Yeah. So it's not like they might as
who knows them, they might have just thought that they had
something great on their hands. We've seen that happen enough.
(15:43):
Yeah, because clearly a lot of people did like it did like
festival runs and well, and people are praising and
festivals and like, and like people who have watched other
action movies are coming, watching this and then like,
yeah, this is a great movie. Oh yeah, this played a different
everything. Yeah, that's why I started.
But like and and clearly like, Indian distributors like Dharma
don't care for like Film Festival, so they bury the Tifka
(16:04):
mentioned at the last two seconds of the movie and not in
the opening credits, which is just like bonkers to me.
People will walk out as if. Yeah, the seat is like how do
you dare you send Indian movie to full festival?
And how dare you give us a moviethat went to a festival and
people like now we are going to walk.
Out which is the insane the way imagine a palm.
(16:25):
They mentioned that palm they were at the end of the movie
last three seconds. We won it, by the way.
In India they often put the quote UN quote item number at
the beginning of the movie. You know, it should be like
listen, but they will they will not put a please stay.
This is a familiar face, at least for three minutes.
(16:45):
Then we'll introduce the non familiar faces.
So they would rather do that than, you know, badge of literal
badge of honor code the cop. Yeah.
But yeah, I don't know why we were praising it from festivals.
That was praising it because I don't see it.
I don't see why. If anything like this, probably
one of the rare movies where like someone's going to do a
(17:05):
remake and then make it better Iguess.
Because yeah, there's only one way.
To go, at least you trust the journey people to do action if
nothing else. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean the story is to bare bones anywhere and I don't
really care like as long as I'm.Yeah, I don't care.
Like I was waiting. I was like Kadam Karo is going
like romance. Barnacaro start the action.
But they do that. But this is very badly done.
(17:27):
Exactly. It's like, oh God, everything is
because normally I'm OK with that.
You know, even John honestly I would say like can't demote in
like traumatic scene. But The thing is.
Yeah, 90 percent, 5% of the movie is him.
Like shooting dudes then doesn'tmatter and it's done well
mostly. But yeah, I was like, I'll take,
you know, he's a bad actor. It's fine.
(17:48):
They can't, you know, design these interpersonal drama
scenes. Fine, get over with it and push
me into the train and do that crazy stuff.
But then I start, happened, started, and I was like, Oh
well, It's disappointing on bothfronts.
So I remember when they when themovie was, you know, a few
months before it's released and they were doing all this build
up for it. I remember watching this, the
director's earlier film and it'scalled called Apurva, OK.
(18:13):
And it was released on like Hotstar, directly on Hotstar,
whatever. And that movie is terrible, you
know? At the moment you said directly
a hotstar. I was like, there's only one
word coming after. That movie is terrible and what
happens in that movie is also like a contained environment
under action, you know, that is actually no pun intended, but
(18:33):
like up in a comfort zone sandbox.
May he. Hey, Film.
So like, yeah, yeah. Haha no so but even that one was
so royally bungled because it was some medieval ruins.
Gender. A girl is being chased by like
goons basically. That's the premise right?
But at no point could you understand what is happening
where she again the same problemthat I had with kilt and most
(18:57):
method it was more difficult because in kilt, what are you
going to do? You're going to jump off the
train? No, but there you can just leave
the the medieval rules right andjust leave no, but for but
enough as they have found ways to contain her there, which I'm
like, you were just shooting yourself in the foot.
Why are you even doing this if you can't?
So anyway, so nothing about thatmovie kind of inspired
(19:18):
confidence in this one. And I'm like has someone just
magically turned into like an orsomeone but clearly not.
We've been here before, going tobe here once again many more
times, but it's still hard. All right, time to wrap.
Up. Yeah, OK.
That's all for this episode of The Wrong Take.
You can follow us on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Threads
(19:41):
at the Wrong Take part. You can write to us at the wrong
takepart@gmail.com. Please leave us a rating and a
review that every episode and wewill see you next week.
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Fiera. And I'm the one.
Welcome to the long take. This week, we're discussing the
action movie Kill, which is now on Disney to Hotstar after it's
like one in theaters. I think it's still running in
theaters by Nikesh, Nikesh Bhatt.
And it stars Laksha And, like, who's like, a new card to see, I
think because it's introducing in the credits.
Yeah. It's like what John Wick meets
(00:36):
raid meets bullet trains, something like that.
What do you think about? We don't, Yeah, that's what they
said in the marketing, right? They kept saying it's John Wick,
it's Raid. But then the movie kind of
fundamentally misunderstands what made John Wick and The Raid
good, because it's nothing like those movies.
Yeah, it's just like the, you know, basic thing is like you
have to get the action like as fluid and like as quick as it
(00:56):
can be, right? Like it needs to feel, every
head needs to feel like it's building momentum and that that
never happened. Yeah.
I mean, not only does it kind ofdo a sloppy job of the action,
it's also not really a very goodrevenge movie either, because
the movie needs to kind of ask some very pertinent questions
about why revenge, which it doesnot.
(01:18):
And so, yeah, I mean, it's a failure on both fronts for me.
I mean, I wasn't even enjoying it like viscerally so that I
could ignore all the, you know. Poor drama bits, yeah.
But yeah, and, and just, it keptgetting more and more annoying
because then I realized that also this is it, right?
It's not going to like level up or switch into, into a new gear
(01:41):
or anything. It's just going to be more of
the same, the same sort of action over and over again.
And until, yeah, until he eitherdies or, you know, kills the
other guy and I'm like, fine, OK.
Yeah, it struggles to get you invested in it or as it said, it
struggles to even deliver on like inventiveness.
That's what you need from like ayou're trapped in like a just
(02:02):
like a three by three box of a drain.
You need to like, you know, showme what you've thought of in
terms of like, Oh yeah, we'll start off with like the stuff,
but then we'll deliver like these sort of cool stuff that
like you and thought of like howwe could use like Lost or
whatever. Or like, you know, how they did
like go above the train and thencome down like they didn't use
that at all. It was just as of like to travel
from point A to point B. Nothing happens outside the
(02:23):
train ever. Like that's no one ever thought
of that or no one ever was bothered about that.
Actually, people just use it from a sneaky way to avoid
everyone and go from there. And like, OK, but I even inside
the train and never really like sort of goes beyond of like,
yeah, people are hurling things that you are throwing things
that you know you're dodging andyou're trying to like everyone's
stuck in one goal. Like they can't really move.
(02:44):
Like what's beyond that, right? You have to come up with new
ways to use the train kind of infrastructure, use the lack of
space to like do things that youcannot do with action, maybe
outside in like a general sort of scenario.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it got annoying as more and more
annoying as it went on. But then the movie kind of it's
befuddling, I think within the 1st 20 minutes, right.
(03:05):
And it's as early as that when you kind of start wondering if
this person has any sort of grasp over the geography of his
kind of stage, right. So you've choose chosen to set
this entire film on a moving train, right?
It's not the first way to do that.
But then, unlike all the other good ones, at no point did I
(03:26):
know where this person was in relation to the villains, you
know? And I think that's a major,
major flaw. Like any good movie set on a
train would let you know that this person is here.
The people he wants to catch arein the next compartment or in
three or like 3 compartments. Yeah, Yeah, I think he have done
only. Or does he use?
Those short, short ones where like they sort of zoom through
(03:50):
the compartments and they transport us from 1 comparator
to the next compartment. But like that shot needs to be
used a lot more often. That needs to be a transition
shot to figure out because you are you are using the whole
thing of like that sometimes thethe victims are trapped between
like villains on both side or sometimes the villains are
trapped by like these variation either side.
So that needs to be communicateda lot more because you
(04:10):
understand like, yeah, what are the stakes, right?
Like who is going where, who is trying to corner whom from
where? And because the last time it
happened, I remember when I got lost, for the most part I was
able to follow over when I got lost was that main villain
basically that funny. He gets off the train at some
point and then he gets on the train again and barely managed
his tool. He climbs at the at the end of
the train and I thought he was in the other side.
(04:33):
But then when he actually shows on big weight, he no.
So that just proves right that when you thought that you were
following along, you really weren't, because the movie is
kind of doing its own thing and I was still lost very early on.
Then becomes it becomes kind of frustrating, right, because
you're trying to figure things out that you shouldn't be
actually, right. Somebody should be coming and
(04:54):
telling you that, listen, he needs to in order to get the
girl, the sister. This is what he needs to do
beyond just, you know, where, where it's there's a reason that
it's not like a regular action movie.
So I don't really care about these things otherwise.
But since you're on a train, I need to know if people are in
the first class compartment and he's in the second class
(05:15):
compartment. You know, to get an idea,
somebody used to either see it or we need to see it.
And you know, like you were saying, it's not like he's doing
anything interesting with the geography either.
It's not like as the audience, you and I know that a tub
compartment beam A, there is a washroom where he can see, you
know, take refuge. So we want him to get to
(05:36):
compartment B. You know, it's not like we've
seen the house about rain control cursor, the lights off
cursor. So we want him to get to the
place where he can switch the lights off.
None of that so. There's also one, like, not very
defined. It's just like a vague thing of
Pele, like keeping Peleka safe for like the first party minutes
or whatever. And then when she's gone, then
it's like the movie almost like loses itself because it's like,
(05:58):
what do we do now for 10 minutes?
It's just like, let everyone like grieve or like be angry and
they're like, oh, wait. It's like remembers.
He has a flashback to the momentof like half an hour ago when
Peleka told him like, say my sister, like you, did you
forget? That which is just poor screen
writing, right? Because it's almost as if the
movie has run out of motive, motivation for this dude.
(06:19):
Do you remember that? Let's just throw that in
because, you know, it's not as like the other people are any
less important if you're like some sort of commando in this
situation. No, you need like some like a
girl that you personally know tokind of do the right thing.
You know, like, who knows? Yeah.
(06:42):
But then that brings me to, like, just this person as a
character. You know, the action is
terrible. We've spoken about that, which
is a, you know, not the greatestposition to be in if you're an
action movie. Yeah, but the the dude is.
Like he cannot, I don't know, he's like Schwarzenegger from
like the first movie or something.
He can't emote. And yeah, that's a big kind of
problem because the character isso underwritten.
(07:03):
Yeah. And even though he's given
scenes in the early going and you like you're supposed to
invest in this, their love storythat he's like trying to make
her runaway or whatever. And every scene in that, every
moment, that scene where he is wherever they are in Bihar,
Jharkhand, at her engagement. I'm just like Bhai Ek toh
Ricardo, facial expression key. You care for this moment.
Yeah, it's it takes a while to kind of figure out case, but
(07:26):
because for 1015 minutes he's like, you know, let's lay low.
Let's not, you know, do anything, just quietly get
through it, you know, But then when the inevitable happens and
she's killed, which again, like how many movies have you watched
when this happens when like the fridge a woman anyway, that
happens and then this. Then they do the whatever the
(07:49):
the title of the movie, like interval or something, I don't
remember, and then it kind of goes crazy.
This person goes crazy and then then it's like.
She just goes like he becomes like, like as bad as the villain
or like worse at some point because he's like he's stringing
up people from like the roof of the train.
I don't know what he's done. Objectively becomes worse than
(08:11):
the villains because the villains were they're robbers,
right? And we know that they're doing
this because this is what they do this he's supposed to be some
sort of savior protector. But then in the second-half,
he's like you said, he's literally like ceremonially like
killing people, like straying them up and like doing like
intimidation tactics. And he seems to like to go to
when did you do it? It's revealed as like this
(08:32):
grand, like, oh, look at what hedid, right?
Like Talibaja moment. But I'm like Hiccup here, isn't
he? He will.
He will look at our other villain while he's stabbing some
hench men, and then he'll stab them three more times in front
of the villain as if like, it's a personal thing.
And it might as well it it couldbe a personal thing, but there.
But like Rebel? Personal thing is like for your
(08:53):
the woman you lost, why you stabbing the Henshaw as if like
you know him personally, like you knew him from a previous
life and yeah he scored a team by Mario SK neck and.
Which goes against the the premise of the movie itself,
right, is that it's they kill this whatever, Cha cha cha, some
person, right? And it's supposed to be that,
oh, this dude just died in the crossfire and, you know, there
(09:13):
was nothing bursting. Yeah.
But then as the movie goes along, it feels more and more
like individually on these people she feels, you know.
Yeah. So it's, I mean, to the point
where the woman, like, dodged the bullet.
Like it would have been the worst life for her if she had
survived and had to live with this dude.
Yeah. And I was even like you
(09:35):
mentioned the fridging thing. I was trying to initially get in
the better doubt because you kept her around for like 40
minutes part like you killed heroff in the 1st 5 minutes and
then you know like she's just a stock character.
Like you at least establish her in some sense.
I can like feel like what she's sort of going to.
But it's when they start using her as like in flashbacks, you
know, these like 5 second like moments where like he thinks of
her dying or he thinks of their previous life.
(09:57):
Then I'm like, well then it's like frigging.
Because then now you're actuallyusing it as motivation or like a
reminder or her memory to propelhim forward in the narrative.
Yeah, yeah. So he's like turning back on it
as if, you know, the movie itself was unsure, kid, we've
kind of figured this connection out.
Or if you bought their romantic kind of relationship, the movies
(10:19):
unsure. So it's as much a reminder for
you and high as it is for this too.
Yeah, so to replay her that or her to replay her bloody hand,
like finger, whatever whole handprint on the glass door,
that stuff then becomes frisching because you're like,
you're releasing your character.You introduce and establish and
how they feel about each other to just like a character, like a
(10:40):
moment or some memory that propels them forward, which is
the issue. Then for me, which is just a
more annoying because then you kind of remember that you
yourself were the ones who told us that either John Wick, hey,
either John Wick and no, John Wick is the first John Wick was
doing more inventive things thanthis one is.
And they were like, it was hardly John Wick back there.
And then I just remembered that TK is not even a budget thing
(11:03):
right? Because the raid wasn't
particularly expensive. Exactly, that's why when I first
they do the whole it's gonna be like one guy against whatever
thing they established their 36 guys, the billion.
I'm thinking raid. I'm like, yeah, this is like
he's caught up in like instead of a building, he's caught up in
a train. It's the same scenario
basically. And he's to go from this to that
end and finish everyone off. Like Raid is so damn inventive.
(11:25):
Every sequence they figure out how to like.
And if you not, can't be inventive, at least then give me
like the basic thing, right? Like give me like almost like
pun intended to give me long takes.
Like, you know, just put the camera in the board and spin it
around characters. He's going at it.
At least then that way I feel the actor can do something or he
can hold a moment. He's beating up people.
You're not cutting from beat to beat because you're not
cheating. Whatever action you're doing.
(11:47):
There's not a single like one take sequence or whatever.
Yeah, yeah. No.
But this I observed because it'snot just it's not just letting
your actors down, you know, it'salso lending your crew down
because there are stunt people involved, right?
I'm stunt people, Khali come near to fall down and you know,
ram yourself into like glass or something.
(12:08):
You know, it's that they're performing the choreography
fully. So the impression I get is that
these scenes are all minutely choreographed, right?
So they've designed all these scenes and they've performed
them on set. It's just that Baad Mijak, if
for some reason you thought that, no, let's just chop it up,
which is baffling, right, then you're just like, then you might
(12:28):
as well have just shorted in bits and pieces.
Who goes? Because that's what it comes
across as on screen. It's just, it's very, very
weird. It's like you've got someone who
doesn't know how to make an action movie and you've told
them to make. Yeah, yeah.
They just feel that because likethey will take like things, you
know, like it's like we've been trained, right.
We've seen enough action movies to know how every shot needs to
(12:50):
feed, feed into the next shot. Like, you know, in terms of
sound design editing, like a shot length and everything.
So when you when you don't get that impact right in the in the
early, actually, it's only when,you know, when the robbers start
taking over the train and like pulling people and just like
throwing them around, like give us our valuables and these guys
in step. And I think Biresh is the first
to step in or whatever before I would it.
It's like the punches, you know,the way to hit and then the way
(13:13):
you need to part to the next shot of people falling down.
Like I'm not getting that, you know, feel of the momentum.
I'm not getting the trail out ofit.
Like, yeah, this is building to a crescendo.
It just, it feels like it's the Mr. then you took a half a
second extra, then you got to the next shot and then you have
then he falls and I'm like, no, I'm losing.
Like you know the the momentum out of it.
Yeah, I mean, because we're not like at least I'm not saying
(13:35):
that the John Wick style of action is the only way that
action should be done or can be done, right.
It's not that long takes or the only way that.
You can, yeah, because I would love to like even if you did
like a bond method of Paul, I would be up for that also.
Exactly right. We've seen how that works
equally well because that feels like you're literally in the
room with people who are fighting.
(13:55):
You know, yeah, like, yeah, like, let the camera do its
thing. If I can't see people, they're
blurred out. Like, at least I feel like, you
know, the energy of it. Like, yeah, everyone's being
pummeled around. Yeah.
Or use you like you said, use the sound to kind of make that
impact use the use the cuts yeah, you to your advantage
instead of masking things here. It feels like Lakshy action,
action Karathas and action Archers and Akia.
So now you're like cutting around him.
(14:17):
You know, which is what they do with nepo babies when they can't
hold a close up, you know, like,Oh my God, Oh my close-ups.
Any a picture man, because that person couldn't perform.
So now cutting to reaction shotsor like this that, whatever.
It feels like that's the approach they took with this
move and it's all heightened because the villain dude is
(14:37):
actually doing a good job, right?
So he's like chewing up the scenery and everything.
And this guy is like, which is just like, oh, like moving
around. Like it's like, Oh my God.
So it feels like the movie was when they made it, it was in,
they were in such a bad positionto kind of rescue it from
itself, not only on like a performance front, but like on
(14:59):
an action front and just like a storytelling.
The whole thing feels like it was made on the edit table.
And they obviously didn't get away with it.
Didn't obviously have the tasty or like even the desire to be
like, Oh no, let's just kill it and shoot it.
They kind of, if anything, the the expectations that they kind
of raised were unjustified, right?
(15:21):
Because not only is this this all we got like US distribution,
which is rare, you know, and then it got like, ironically
enough, from the John Wick guys remake deal.
Yeah. And all this happened before the
release. So.
Yeah. So it's not like they might as
who knows them, they might have just thought that they had
something great on their hands. We've seen that happen enough.
(15:43):
Yeah, because clearly a lot of people did like it did like
festival runs and well, and people are praising and
festivals and like, and like people who have watched other
action movies are coming, watching this and then like,
yeah, this is a great movie. Oh yeah, this played a different
everything. Yeah, that's why I started.
But like and and clearly like, Indian distributors like Dharma
don't care for like Film Festival, so they bury the Tifka
(16:04):
mentioned at the last two seconds of the movie and not in
the opening credits, which is just like bonkers to me.
People will walk out as if. Yeah, the seat is like how do
you dare you send Indian movie to full festival?
And how dare you give us a moviethat went to a festival and
people like now we are going to walk.
Out which is the insane the way imagine a palm.
(16:25):
They mentioned that palm they were at the end of the movie
last three seconds. We won it, by the way.
In India they often put the quote UN quote item number at
the beginning of the movie. You know, it should be like
listen, but they will they will not put a please stay.
This is a familiar face, at least for three minutes.
(16:45):
Then we'll introduce the non familiar faces.
So they would rather do that than, you know, badge of literal
badge of honor code the cop. Yeah.
But yeah, I don't know why we were praising it from festivals.
That was praising it because I don't see it.
I don't see why. If anything like this, probably
one of the rare movies where like someone's going to do a
(17:05):
remake and then make it better Iguess.
Because yeah, there's only one way.
To go, at least you trust the journey people to do action if
nothing else. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean the story is to bare bones anywhere and I don't
really care like as long as I'm.Yeah, I don't care.
Like I was waiting. I was like Kadam Karo is going
like romance. Barnacaro start the action.
But they do that. But this is very badly done.
(17:27):
Exactly. It's like, oh God, everything is
because normally I'm OK with that.
You know, even John honestly I would say like can't demote in
like traumatic scene. But The thing is.
Yeah, 90 percent, 5% of the movie is him.
Like shooting dudes then doesn'tmatter and it's done well
mostly. But yeah, I was like, I'll take,
you know, he's a bad actor. It's fine.
(17:48):
They can't, you know, design these interpersonal drama
scenes. Fine, get over with it and push
me into the train and do that crazy stuff.
But then I start, happened, started, and I was like, Oh
well, It's disappointing on bothfronts.
So I remember when they when themovie was, you know, a few
months before it's released and they were doing all this build
up for it. I remember watching this, the
director's earlier film and it'scalled called Apurva, OK.
(18:13):
And it was released on like Hotstar, directly on Hotstar,
whatever. And that movie is terrible, you
know? At the moment you said directly
a hotstar. I was like, there's only one
word coming after. That movie is terrible and what
happens in that movie is also like a contained environment
under action, you know, that is actually no pun intended, but
(18:33):
like up in a comfort zone sandbox.
May he. Hey, Film.
So like, yeah, yeah. Haha no so but even that one was
so royally bungled because it was some medieval ruins.
Gender. A girl is being chased by like
goons basically. That's the premise right?
But at no point could you understand what is happening
where she again the same problemthat I had with kilt and most
(18:57):
method it was more difficult because in kilt, what are you
going to do? You're going to jump off the
train? No, but there you can just leave
the the medieval rules right andjust leave no, but for but
enough as they have found ways to contain her there, which I'm
like, you were just shooting yourself in the foot.
Why are you even doing this if you can't?
So anyway, so nothing about thatmovie kind of inspired
(19:18):
confidence in this one. And I'm like has someone just
magically turned into like an orsomeone but clearly not.
We've been here before, going tobe here once again many more
times, but it's still hard. All right, time to wrap.
Up. Yeah, OK.
That's all for this episode of The Wrong Take.
You can follow us on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Threads
(19:41):
at the Wrong Take part. You can write to us at the wrong
takepart@gmail.com. Please leave us a rating and a
review that every episode and wewill see you next week.
Thanks for listening.
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