Brief Story Line
Kid (Dev Patel - Hotel Mumbai, The Green Knight etc) had been working as a fighter in an underground club managed by Tiger (Sharlto Copley - District 9, Gringo etc) for quite some time while trying to find ways to infiltrate a club managed by Queenie (Ashwini Kalsekar - Rudra: The Edge of Darkness TV series, 36 Farmhouse etc). Kid was planning to kill the Police Chief Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher - Dukaan, Aarya TV series etc) who frequently went to the club.
After managing to convince Queenie, Kid finally got accepted to work there and later used the connections of Alphonso (Pitobash - Million Dollar Arm, I am Kalam etc) to gain more access.
So would Kid be able to exact his revenge? And what would happen to him? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
When I saw the trailer, it looked to me like a violent action film which made me intrigued. But as I started watching, especially the first half hour, I found myself to be a bit confused where the story was heading. It seemed a bit unclear what Kid was planning or why he wanted to do it so bad. It was only shown through blurry flashback and so on that had me guessing. After almost one third of the movie, it suddenly exploded with very suspenseful nonstop action scenes for a while that really got me excited.
Good thing that despite slower pace subsequent to that part, everything became clearer for me. Although it was done through a process that I did not really enjoy, at least it gave a better understanding. Obviously with it, came a better appreciation of the movie especially with a bit of uplifting mood and lighter tone by the appearance of minor characters who were able to make me chuckled. And it was rounded up with an amazing climax that truly satisfied and reminded me a lot of John Wick.
This was basically a revenge movie with strong Indian culture background and explicit showing of the poor and weak being oppressed by the wealthy and powerful. It had a very dark and grim feel that might not be pleasing to those seeking for a light action comedy film. The action was definitely a plus point for me and some of them were well crafted which showed great potential of Dev Patel in his directorial debut. He was also credited as co-writer where the movie was based on the story from him. I thought he was also amazing in his characterization, probably due to his personal background and own experience. Aside from Patel, there were other support characters as well, but the most important one I believed was Baba Sakti (Makarand Deshpande - The Fame Game TV series etc) the spiritual guru and powerful politician.
During the closing credits, I noticed a lot of Indonesian names in the crew and info that the film was shot in Batam island, Indonesia. After reading more about the movie, apparently it was made back in 2021 during the pandemic period and shooting was shifted to Batam (which was weird considering there were a lot of restrictions too in Indonesia then). Anyway it also had some distribution problem which was the reason why the movie was only released in the cinemas in 2024. Fortunately Jordan Peele found out and resolve it by becoming one of the producers (his name was mentioned on the poster).
Overall this was a pretty interesting film. I could understand the appeal for movie critics who love this kind of story telling with powerful message and strong cultural background. For me personally, the main attraction was definitely the action sequence and the satisfaction of seeing bad guys punished, though I was not able to really enjoy the first one third of the movie. The dark and grim feel was also a bit too strong for my personal taste. So if you are convinced with the critics' views and love to see movie with such attributes, then you would likely enjoy this a lot. But if you expect this to be just a simple straight forward revenge movie, then you might find it a bit too heavy like I did.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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