Kennedy Review: Rahul Bhatt Delivers His Career Best Performances In Anurag Kashyap’s Gritty Neo-Noir

Kennedy, Anurag Kashyap’s long-delayed neo-noir crime thriller, finally reaches Indian audiences on ZEE5. The pandemic-set drama, which earned a standing ovation at Cannes, follows a haunted contract killer in Mumbai. Rahul Bhat delivers a fierce, layered turn that many will read as a career high. The film’s mix of political sting, moral despair and genre tension makes its digital release notable.

Rather than a simple crime story, Kennedy feels like a grim character study about institutions collapsing. Kashyap links personal guilt with state machinery, showing how a system moulds and then discards violent men. The narrative circles themes of corruption, grief and complicity. Viewers watch one policeman’s descent while sensing many invisible figures shaped the same way, then quietly erased when convenient.

Kennedy review: politics, pandemic and moral decay

The film’s political edge becomes clear through its pandemic backdrop and conversations at the margins of the plot. Thaali-banging and diya-lighting appear as hollow ritual when set against mass cremations and lost livelihoods. A loud television reporter mirrors media frenzy. Characters discuss billionaires thriving while ordinary residents scramble, hinting that real power lies with tycoons, not elected leaders or police uniforms.

References to bomb scares, extortion rackets and dried-up graft during lockdown build this sense of institutional rot. Corruption does not vanish when the economy slows; it mutates, turning bolder and more desperate. Kashyap avoids lectures. The politics seep through dialogue, settings and choices made in dim rooms. The audience is expected to join the dots rather than receive clean explanations.

Kennedy review: Mumbai noir and visual atmosphere

Mumbai, stripped by the pandemic, appears as a ghostly graphic novel in motion. Empty roads, masked faces and jittery news feeds shape the atmosphere. Cinematography leans on shadow, neon spill and deep night corners. Operatic surges and jazz textures emphasise dread and irony. The lockdown’s muffled quiet almost becomes another character, pushing conversations and killings into enclosed, airless spaces.

Within this spectral city, Kennedy moves like an urban phantom. By day, almost invisible; by night, deadly and precise. Kashyap slows down some sequences, allowing the city’s emptiness to press on the viewer. At other points, sudden violence cuts through the stillness. This contrast between silence and chaos deepens the film’s noir mood and underlines the character’s fractured state.

Kennedy review: plot, identity and double life

The protagonist we meet is Kennedy, an insomniac chauffeur working for a high-end cab service. That job is a cover. Away from paying passengers, Kennedy carries out secret hits ordered by Police Commissioner Rasheed Khan, played with chilling calm by Mohit Takalkar. Each killing maintains the illusion that law enforcement remains in control, even as it behaves like a crime syndicate.

The man now called Kennedy was once Uday Shetty, an impulsive but idealistic cop. Uday joined the force to challenge corruption but quickly slid into the same patterns. Together with Rasheed and Inspector Abhijit Kale, portrayed by Shrikant Yadav, Uday hunted gangster Saleem. A fateful interrogation at the flat of Saleem’s associate Gunjan changed every life involved and shattered Uday’s public image.

Kennedy review: the incident that creates a “killer cop.”

During that tense raid, Uday tries to force a confession from Gunjan’s brother, Chandan. The coercion escalates beyond control. In the chaos, Uday kills Chandan, crossing a line he cannot step back over. News channels seize on the footage and fury on the streets grows. Headlines label him a “killer cop.” The same system that once celebrated Uday’s ruthlessness turns away.

Revenge from the criminal world follows. Saleem plants explosives in the family car used by Uday’s wife and young son, Adi. The blast kills Adi and destroys whatever balance Uday still had. At home, grief and rage consume everything. Uday’s wife, terrified by the change, tells him that an “animal” is taking over and insists on living apart to protect their daughter, Aditi.

Kennedy review: disappearance, surveillance and Rasheed’s control

With Rasheed’s help, Uday stages a fake abduction and presumed death, disappearing from public records. Before vanishing, Uday installs hidden cameras near his family. Years later, still unseen, he obsessively watches them from shadowy rooms. The name Uday Shetty fades into rumour. The persona Kennedy emerges instead, existing as a ghost within the police ecosystem, answerable only to Rasheed.

In exchange for Rasheed’s protection and the promise of vengeance on Saleem, Kennedy becomes a silent executioner. A businessman dies in a luxury flat, throat cut cleanly, while Kennedy calmly swaps his soaked coat for a fresh one from the wardrobe. Another assignment follows when Rasheed cannot bribe an honest aide in the chief minister’s office, leading to an attack on the aide’s entire family.

Kennedy review: mask, insomnia and haunted conscience

Kennedy’s physical presence is striking: heavy build, slow walk, steady hands, face hidden behind a black mask. The mask is not only health protection; it seems like armour against his own shame. In several scenes, Kennedy stares coldly at people wearing masks wrong, as if minor negligence equals moral failure. These small irritations suggest an obsessive need to control his decaying environment.

Despite his efficient brutality, Kennedy cannot sleep. Nights stretch as he sits with screens, cigarettes and ghosts. Chandan’s death haunts him most persistently. Kennedy appears to enjoy the last look in each victim’s eyes, yet those moments return in the dark. The character feels less like a standard hitman and more like the lingering echo of corruption embedded inside state power.

Kennedy review: shifting corruption during the pandemic

Rasheed’s schemes grow more elaborate as cash flows dry up in lockdown. He convinces Kennedy to plant explosives in the car of a reformed bookie outside the Modemar hotel, claiming they will not detonate. Kennedy triggers the blast anyway, using the confusion to reshape deals. Later, the same bookie is handed to Kale, who stages a suicide, masking another murder as self-destruction.

Police here resemble a criminal cartel adjusting to new economic pressures. With routine bribes dwindling, they rely on intimidation, staged deaths and alliances with gangsters. Kennedy functions as an internal weapon, his humanity treated as disposable. The narrative suggests such systems do not need many killers like him; they need a few who have nothing left to lose.

Kennedy review: Charlie and the trap around the hitman

The cycle of violence intensifies after Kennedy kills Saleem’s nephew, Akbar, finishing the act with a taunting “Salaam”. This killing alerts Saleem that his old enemy is alive. Faced with pressure from both criminal and political sides, Rasheed chooses survival over loyalty. Rasheed forges a fragile understanding with Saleem and plans to sacrifice Kennedy through a carefully staged encounter.

Charlie enters here, played by Sunny Leone with a mix of strength and fragility. Charlie is the partner of Kabir, a restaurateur who owes Rasheed money. Rasheed demands Charlie as repayment, treating her as leverage rather than a person. She hides fear behind a dry, misplaced laugh that surfaces in serious situations, capturing how humiliation pushes someone to detach from reality.

Kennedy review: Charlie, Kabir and offers of redemption

When Kabir is murdered on Rasheed’s orders, Charlie unknowingly shares a cab with the man responsible. She rides in Kennedy’s car that same night and notices Kabir’s stolen bag, which Kennedy carries. The recognition sparks suspicion and curiosity. Charlie senses something broken yet human in Kennedy and continues to reach out, hoping kindness might reveal a path out of violence.

Rasheed later corners Charlie and uses the relationship to lure Kennedy to her flat. Kennedy, already expecting betrayal, arrives prepared. The confrontation turns savage. Kale is overpowered. Saleem manages to shoot Kennedy in the arm before Kennedy stabs Saleem fatally. Gunjan appears, and Kennedy shoots Gunjan in the arm to free Charlie from her hold, then leaves fourteen lakh rupees for Aditi’s future.

Kennedy review: final reckoning and unresolved ending

After the bloodshed around Saleem and Charlie, Kennedy finally turns on Rasheed. The killer and handler face each other, and Rasheed dies. With sirens growing louder, Kennedy uploads footage from his hidden cameras, exposing years of wrongdoing involving officials and criminals. He phones his ex-wife but receives only silence. On his phone, Kennedy types a message to Aditi: “I love you”.

The film’s last moments deny tidy closure. Kennedy puts a gun in his mouth as Aditi’s call comes through. The image cuts to black before any shot, leaving viewers unsure whether he pulls the trigger. This ambiguity feels like another punishment. The dead cannot speak, the living barely forgive, and the audience is left to wrestle with uneasy empathy and judgement.

Kennedy review: music, performances and technical craft

Music deepens the film’s mood. An operatic score blends with Aamir Aziz’s poetry and Boyblanck’s jazz touches. Songs like Mera Mehboob and Kabhi Tu Bhi Roke Dekh carry both narrative weight and political commentary. Tchaikovsky’s The Sound of Kennedy, performed by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, stretches for about eleven minutes, echoing Kennedy’s mental unravelling with a slow, aching swell.

Rahul Bhat anchors every frame with weary posture, harsh voice and unreadable eyes. His performance avoids melodrama yet feels terrifying when violence erupts. Many of Kennedy’s victims appear ordinary or even decent, making viewers question their sympathy. Around Bhat, Mohit Takalkar crafts a convincingly sleazy Rasheed, while Abhilash Thapliyal’s Chandan lingers as conscience. Megha Burman, Kurush Deboo, Aamir Dalvi and Karishma Modi support the sprawling canvas.

Kennedy review: structure, pacing and overall impact

Kennedy unfolds as a slow burn, shifting across time and memory in a way that can unsettle. Some stretches feel long, and the non-linear structure may confuse distracted viewers. Yet these minor issues sit against strong night-time imagery, layered performances and a finale that lands with bruising force. As a crime thriller, political statement and psychological study, the film remains one of Kashyap’s darkest works.

Kennedy ultimately resists easy labels. The film operates as a crime saga, a bleak political reflection and a personal tragedy set in pandemic Mumbai. Its journey from Cannes applause to delayed streaming release mirrors the story’s own sense of limbo. Even on a small screen, the combination of Rahul Bhat’s performance and Kashyap’s harsh vision leaves a lasting, uneasy imprint.