Kennedy
Crime Thriller Hindi
An insomniac former cop, Kennedy has been presumed dead for years. Yet, in secret, he continues to serve a corrupt system while seeking redemption. Halfway between thriller and film noir, Kennedy chronicles a violent and bloody vendetta in the dark streets of Mumbai. At the rate of the murders, Kennedy's character reveals itself more and more and sinks into a spiral that seems to have no way out.
| Cast: | Rahul Bhat, Sunny Leone, Mohit Takalkar, Megha Burman, Haripriya Manish Lodhia, Shrikant Yadav, Abhilash Thapliyal, Jeniffer Piccinato, Benedict Garrett, Aamir Dalvi, Karishma Modi |
|---|---|
| Director: | Anurag Kashyap |
| Editor: | Tanya Chhabria, Deepak Kattar |
| Camera: | Sylvester Fonseca |
Guild Reviews
A Spotify Review
It took three years for Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy to secure a release after its Cannes premiere, and that, too, on the D-list tier streaming service ZEE5. We discuss the film’s baffling narrative, vague rumination about corruption and power, and long stretches of inaction that don’t feel authentic to Kashyap. We also spend way too much time discussing the ill-fitting costumes of Rahul Bhat and the underused Sunny Leone, and end with unverified rumours about the movie’s long-delayed release. Hint: It had something to do with a certain ‘Bade Papa’.
Personal, realized, and forthright both in its exuberance, and despondency
Rahul Bhat powers this haunting meditation on systemic rot and redemption
Before the curtain rises on Anurag Kashyap’s latest noirish adventure, William Wordsworth’s famous words, “We poets in our youth begin in gladness; but thereof come in the end despondency and madness”, flash on the screen. This struggle between resolution and independence holds for both Kashyap and Kennedy.
Rahul Bhat-led revenge thriller shows flashes of vintage Anurag Kashyap
About an hour into Kennedy, writer-director Anurag Kashyap springs a sequence so wickedly orchestrated that it alters the film’s grammar in an instant. In the scene, former cop Uday Shetty (Rahul Bhat) massacres a local politician and his family. The violence is merciless, yet staged with such choreographic precision — pauses, glances, the geometry of bodies collapsing across rooms — that it lands as shockingly comic as it is brutal.
Rahul Bhat In His Best Act, Anurag Kashyap Not Quite
An insomniac former police officer, “officially dead” for six years, prowls the streets of Mumbai in the still of the night, killing people in cold blood. Kennedy is his assumed name. The reason, like his deadly deeds, is shrouded in mystery. The taciturn, brooding assassin is out there ostensibly to clean up the mess that politicians, industrialists and gangsters have created. But, in reality, he is the Mumbai police commissioner’s secret loose cannon and hatchet man. That apart, the man, played with coiled-up intensity by a beefed-up Rahul Bhat, has his own reason for being the way he is. He has a score to settle with an elusive crime lord responsible for tearing him away from his family.
A Hitman Drama That Shoots Itself in the Foot
The Mumbai of Kennedy is dark and dystopian. It’s straight out of a Bhavesh Joshi-coded graphic novel: the sort of city that breeds neo-noir lawlessness, stylised violence and broken vigilantism. Bodies are maimed to Tchaikovsky compositions (performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, no less); a lyrical voice-over haunts the central figure; an indie-hop soundtrack bleeds into set-pieces that use time and stillness as a narrative weapon; heroic masks are worn to protect and destroy. Except this place is real. The dystopia is Covid-era Mumbai. Face-masks are still mandatory. Cultural distancing is rampant. Capitalism is suspended between lockdowns and life. A desperate police force runs extortion and contract-killing rackets in a crumbling economy. They are part of the political pandemic, leaching on the power-dynamic between ruling parties and billionaire industrialists. Survival is a divisive religion.
अंधेरी रातों में सुनसान राहों पर ‘कैनेडी’
‘हम कवि अपनी जवानी की शुरुआत खुशी से करते हैं, लेकिन आखिर में निराशा और पागलपन आ जाता है।’ इंगलिश कवि विलियम वर्ड्सवर्थ की इन पंक्तियों से शुरू होने वाली अनुराग कश्यप की फिल्म ‘कैनेडी’ बहुत जल्द इन पंक्तियों के अर्थ को बयान करने में लग जाती है। 2020-21 की कोरोना महामारी के समय में स्थित इस फिल्म ‘कैनेडी’ (Kennedy) का केंद्रीय पात्र कैनेडी कभी एक पुलिस वाला उदय शैट्टी हुआ करता था जो शहर के भ्रष्ट पुलिस कमिश्नर की टीम में था। अब भी वह कमिश्नर के कहने पर लोगों को मार रहा है, उनसे उगाही कर रहा है। लेकिन जिस काम को कभी वह खुशी से करता था अब उसी को निराशा और पागलपन से कर रहा है। सिर्फ कुछ रातों की इस कहानी की शुरुआत में ही उदय शैट्टी बता देता है कि पिछले छह सालों में उसने अनगिनत लोगों को मारा है। धीरे-धीरे आगे बढ़ते हुए यह फिल्म बीच-बीच में फ्लैश बैक में भी जाती है और तब समझ आता है कि जिस बहुत उलझे हुए कथानक के बीच हम फंसे पड़े हैं, उसके धागे असल में कहां तक फैले हुए हैं।
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