20 February,2026 10:49 PM IST | Mumbai | Athulya Nambiar
Rahul Bhat in Kennedy
After a long wait, festival acclaim, and multiple delays, Anurag Kashyap's Kennedy has finally arrived in India. Starring Rahul Bhat and Sunny Leone, the noir thriller premiered at international film festivals two years ago to strong critical reception. Following cuts and modifications by the CBFC, the film is now streaming on ZEE5.
Bhat plays the titular Kennedy- a man who wasn't always Kennedy, a driver for a premier cab service and a contract killer. Once known as Uday Shetty, a cop now presumed dead, he lives in pandemic-stricken Mumbai, operating in isolation as a hired killer for a corrupt police commissioner. He executes assignments without question, driven by the promise of information about Saleem- a gangster he holds a deeply personal vendetta against.
The film's first half immerses us in Kennedy's stark routine. A man of few words, he lets his gun speak for him. Emotionally vacant and mechanically precise, he is haunted by the voices of those he has murdered, though he never engages with them. Whether these voices are manifestations of guilt or simply fragments of a fractured mind remains deliberately ambiguous.
The second half traces his descent or perhaps transformation from Uday Shetty, a notorious cop, into Kennedy, a weapon in a system he once served. This isn't a tale of a righteous man betrayed by fate. Kennedy's downfall is self-authored. He has no one to blame but himself, even as revenge consumes him when the consequences of his violence hit close to home.
Set across five nights leading up to what is ominously called "The Night," the film builds tension through fragmentation and restraint. We are not told what the final night entails, only given a confessional monologue delivered in Bhat's gravelly voice- a chilling admission of countless murders committed without remorse. There is no guilt, no justification. Just facts.
As the narrative unfolds, we too begin to lose count of the bodies. Kennedy eliminates not only his assigned targets but anyone who risks becoming collateral evidence. The violence is blunt, unsentimental, almost procedural.
Yet, he spares one person- Charlie, played by Sunny Leone. A neighbour to his first on-screen victim, Charlie drowns her loneliness in alcohol and nervous laughter. In a world defined by corruption and duplicity, their unlikely connection offers the film its only fragile emotional thread apart from a sentimental father-daughter angle.
Through Kennedy's story, Kashyap paints a bleak portrait of systemic rot, a police force compromised by politics and wealth. The film gestures toward commentary on institutional decay but stops short of fully interrogating it. Ironically, a film about corruption found its own release delayed for two years.
Where Kennedy truly excels is in atmosphere. Cinematographer Sylvester Fonseca transforms Mumbai into a nocturnal labyrinth-silent, suffocating, and morally vacant. The pandemic backdrop amplifies the isolation, making the city feel like an accomplice to Kennedy's crimes.
If the screenplay occasionally feels sparse, the film compensates through craft. Rahul Bhat delivers a commanding, controlled performance - internal, simmering, and deeply unsettling. His restraint becomes the film's pulse.
The music further strengthens the mood. With contributions from Aamir Aziz and Raghav Bhati, the soundtrack fills the emotional silences Kennedy refuses to articulate. Most notably, Tchaikovsky's The Sound of Kennedy, performed by City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, becomes the film's aching backbone- reflecting Kennedy state of mind after every kill.
Kennedy may not be Kashyap's most narratively tight work, but it is one of his most atmospheric. It thrives less on plot and more on presence and Rahul Bhat ensures you cannot look away.
