Kennedy

One word.. Beautiful.

I was fortunate enough to watch this movie yesterday at London Indian film festival. Will reveal nothing about the story here as words are different to the actual vision. Director Anurag kashyap has poured his soul into making this craft and when that happens , It goes straight into your heart. It's deep. It's a movie that makes you question about yourself ? As the intro says ," Rahul bhat is Kennedy. That itself speaks alot. He has done such a great job that no one else could be Kennedy. Such a versatile actor that spoke 1000 words through his eyes. Sunny Leone as Charlie was a delight to watch. She was fabulous. Infact the casting was done very cleverly and every character leaves an impact on you. Background music was so brilliant. This movie is one of the best ones in many years and I hope it gets recognized. Thank you to the whole team for creating magic on screen.

The most personal film from AK in a while. The ending made me begin to weep like a child. The classical music was so beautifully used. Just for that I'm going to see it again. Is it just me or does Rahul Bhatt sound like AK in the film in some way. Either I'm projecting or it's intentional. Wherever the politics or the personal came in, the film was in its best gear. Thoroughly enjoyed it. There is a poem in the third act that reminds me so much of Hamlet. Apathy is the devil. That's my take away. And that's a lot to take away if you think about it. Anurag sir had taught me dialogue writing at FTII in 2004. Also, as a Side note, one of my cinematic heroes and me are now connected in a very strange way. The endings of one my most personal films and this film are so ridiculously and strangely connected that my mind is blown. It's something that's going to stay with me till I'm alive.

Kennedy is a mid film because all the bits I liked about it came out as peripheral devices like dialogues that take potshots at police apathy or political ideologies. The references are superb and I loved them. I watched this at the 2023 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and people were hooting for dialogues like "Mi Marathi Mannooss" (I'm a Marathi guy), so you can imagine that what works for the film is not what's in the core. The core is where a hitman, a former cop, who works for the commissioner goes berserk because he's behind a guy for revenge. The rawness and violence that arise as a result are thrilling to watch though I felt the occasional hiphop song and the monoact performance in the middle and Sunny Leone laughing instead of speaking every time a character is aruond her felt sore. I'm not saying it's a bad film but it's not extraordinary.

Finally, I watched Anurag Kashyap's neo-noir crime thriller, Kennedy, thanks to the New York Indian Film Festival. Oh man, how I have missed this side of Kashyap's storytelling.

Kennedy, like Ugly and Raman Raghav 2.0, delves into the dark and sinister underbelly of corruption deeply ingrained within the Indian police force. It also serves as a stark reflection of the bleak truth of human greed.

Rahul Bhat delivers a captivating performance as Kennedy, an insomniac ex-cop presumed dead who has now become a covert contract killer working for corrupt forces in post-lockdown Mumbai. Following his performance in Ugly and Black Warrant, Bhat delivers yet another compelling performance.

Supporting him are actors such as Sunny Leone, Prammod Sanghi, and Shrikant Yadav, who all delivered solid performances.

However, the one performance that truly stood out for me was by Abhilash Thapliyal. Beyond the crime narrative, the movie also explores the profound impact of mental health on individuals and their surroundings, and his role in the movie is critical to narrate that. It sheds light on the consequences of mental health issues and how they affect not only the person but also the people they interact with.

I thoroughly enjoyed Kennedy. It made me so happy to see an Anurag Kashyap movie in the theaters after so long, but it is also immediately made me sad that such a good movie hasn't released in India and is stuck in limbo. Such a loss of Indian cinema.

Kashyap is back in form and probably another one of his movies to get banned or heavily cut by CBFC. When it started, even though there were clear indications of some backstory, the way it began with the almost mundane way of killings, it reminded me of Fincher's The Killer. There was also the humour throughout the movie without losing the darkness. But once everything started to flesh out, it turned out to be much more. When the film wants us to see the world through the emotions of a psychopath(!) it clearly draws the picture and spells out the bigger evil that even hangs above these executioners all the time. The film doesn't spell out the name of the person or the party but essentially does it by describing everything they do and how even with so much money and power, the vilest villains of the movie including the protagonist, are still not evil enough to succeed in their endeavors. The film is essentially Kashyap's exercise in trying to understand the most damned villains in a desperate attempt to exist without fear in this country. This film is a political plea in the guise of a crime thriller.