Movies

MOVIES: DEATH BY DESIGN, BUT NOT QUITE

by Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri April 20 2025, 12:00 am Estimated Reading Time: 8 mins, 53 secs

Inspired by a global star’s interview, Srijit Mukherji’s sequel to Hemlock Society teems with puns, pop culture, and philosophy—but it fumbles the tonal balance and fails to cohere. Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri reviews the film.

Srijit Mukherji’s Killbill Society, a spiritual sequel to his 2013 cult film Hemlock Society, starts off with an inspired premise that blends dark humour, existential musings, and pop-cultural flair. Boasting a cast of characters with delightfully punny names and moments of sharp satire, the film promises a quirky exploration of life, death, and everything in between. Parambrata Chatterjee shines as Mrityunjoy Kar, the man who helps others end their lives on their own terms, and the soundtrack is among Srijit’s best. Yet, for all its ambition and flashes of brilliance, Killbill Society falls short, becoming less a cohesive narrative and more a montage of interesting but disconnected parts, weighed down by casting missteps, tonal confusion, and indulgent storytelling.

Inspired by an interview with a leading international star, Srijit Mukherji’s new film, a sequel to his 2013 hit Hemlock Society, could have been so much more.

The protagonist, Anando Kar (have fun) / Mrityunjoy Kar (mrityu + enjoy + kar = enjoy death). A client who desires a way out of life, Mukti De (give me freedom). A mob boss with a killer name, Pet Kaata Shaw (impossible to translate). A contract killer Ontorip Karmakar (Onto = end; rip = RIP; karma + kar = do your karma). “Anand mara nahin, Anand marte nahin.” Vesuvius and Pompeii, Notre Dame and Florence. An outstanding soundtrack filled with gems.

Ah! If only a jaw-dropping strapline (based on an interview of an international star), quirky names and smart puns, literary and film allusions, philosophical takes on places to visit before you die, and great music sufficed for a film, Srijit Mukherji’s Killbill Society would be a fine one. However, there’s more to a film than these parts that make it. Unfortunately, Srijit’s new film seldom rises above being a stringing together of disparate parts to become a cohesive whole.

Revisiting an Uneven Legacy

Srijit’s 2013 film Hemlock Society is one of his much-loved outings. Coming in the heady days of his early filmmaking, when he was rewriting the landscape of Bengali cinema, it resonated with audiences, though for me it remains one of the weaker offerings in that phase, particularly when you view it against films like Baishe Srabon, Chotushkone, and Jaatishwar. Though every film merits its own evaluation, it has also to be measured vis-à-vis the director’s other offerings. Somehow, in Hemlock Society, the exceptional control he displayed in these other films was absent. The wordplay, though fun, just did not know when to stop. Then there was Koel Mallick. That one performance was a dampener and prevented the film from soaring. Killbill Society is a sort-of sequel to that, and it suffers from some of the same problems.

The narrative takes off with a celebrity Instagram influencer Poorna Aich (Koushani Mukherjee) winning a coveted film award. Professional jealousies apart, it sets her on a collision course with her live-in boyfriend who cannot handle her popularity and is constantly insinuating that she is sleeping her way to ‘fame’. Things come to a head when Poorna signs on to her next film, which involves intimate scenes.

The douchebag then does the unthinkable… releasing online a sex video of Poorna and him!

As all hell breaks loose, it does not take long for the Insta star to become a pariah. TV channels go overboard with panel discussions as the internet goes on overdrive. For poor Poorna, it not only means that her film and financial backers drop her, she also has to contend with a mother who rails and rants against her, and a father who has a heart attack, though her elder sister stands firmly by her. 

Enter Killbill Society

In the throes of despair, she plans to die by suicide only to realize that it’s not easy to take one’s own life. That’s when Angelina Jolie comes to the rescue, and Poorna decides to take a contract hit on herself. Towards that end she connects with a mob boss Pet Kaata Shaw (Biswanath Basu), who directs her to one of his hitmen, Ontorip.

Enter Mrityunjoy Kar aka Anando Kar (Parambrata Chatterjee) with his agency Killbill Society that enables people like Poorna in their aim. What follows are the film’s brightest moments as Parambrata revels in laying out the ground rules and even giving Poorna a demo. The car drive on the way to the demo is the film’s liveliest as Mrityunjoy Kar articulates all that needs to be taken care of—the posthumous issues like the funeral, the shraddh meal (whether veg or non-veg), the necessity of ensuring all financial transactions are completed in advance because the victim is the same as the person ordering the hit. It is apparent Parambrata is having a blast and the energy rubs off on the viewer.

The Slide Begins

So far so good… the first half fairly crackles. However, it doesn’t take long for the film to unravel. A long sequence involving the two sisters drowning their sorrows over drinks in a club drowns the narrative. A couple of failed attempts by Mrityunjoy—which are supposed to play out funny but are exasperating—are followed by a seemingly never-ending exposition that seriously tests patience and credulity. It begins with Poorna explaining how she found out about Mrityunjoy being Anando, goes on to Anando providing the lowdown on how he came to the case after Poorna calls Ontorip to take on the hit, and continues to Poorna and Mrityunjoy realizing they are in love (I never got that vibe developing as a viewer), ultimately leading to a climax in a bathtub in which the film sinks.

There are two major flaws that the film cannot overcome despite all of Srijit’s way with words. One, Koushani in the lead. It’s terrible casting considering that she has a meaty role with a screen time that out-times Param too. I never got a sense of the actor internalizing the trauma of her experience. And it goes wrong from her first reaction to finding out that her world has come crashing down. She holds her head and shrieks, and while that might be a legitimate reaction to anyone experiencing what she has, with Koushani it is as if she has been instructed to react that way. Not once in the film does she manage to put across the enormity of what has befallen her. I understand that the film’s tone—it operates at a heightened ‘jokey’ level, light, frothy, not willing to say that this is a world-shattering experience (which it need not be)—does not possibly allow that engagement in her reaction. But surely, I need to get a sense of a character’s trauma if I have to accept that she is getting a contract out on her own life. The payoff is simply absent.

The other major flaw is the film’s tonality. I get it that the filmmakers are not interested in a serious take on the pitfalls of a technology-driven world (those who live by Instagram reels and likes die by them), but most of the film, in particular Koushani, is so loud and one-note that there’s no reprieve, no counterpoint on display.

This is aggravated by one climax too many (by the fourth one, I turned around to my companion in the theatre to say, no, not again). It takes so long for the film to arrive at the final climax, and that final climax involves a monologue so long that I felt bad about Param having to go through that. If this were a novel, I would have probably underlined those lines and flagged the page. And one cannot but applaud the director’s nerve to have a climax as static as this. However, as it plays out on screen, the monologue makes a mockery of show, don’t tell. At the same time, what has gone before never gave me the feeling that the relationship between Anando and Poorna could engender lines of such resonance. There again you have the issue of tonality. A little less self-indulgence on the part of the director in arriving at the sequence, a little more control, discretion, would have probably given the words the effect they must have had on paper. 

What Remains: A Few Sparkling Moments

At the end of the narrative what you are left with are a couple of early sequences involving Parambrata where he is a breeze, explaining the modus operandi, the terms and conditions of the society. A scene or two that convey the philosophy of life that lies at the film’s heart. And Biswanath Basu as the incredibly named Pet Kaata Shaw, the mob boss who loves family entertainers and who orders hits even while nonchalantly munching away at his lunch. He is a hoot every time he appears on screen. In particular, the scene where he pays the indisposed Poorna a visit at the hospital and asks for a selfie is a standout. But when a practically throwaway scene is a film’s highlight, it gives an idea of the many levels at which the film fails.

There is of course Killbill’s music that harks back to the glory days of Srijit’s early films. I would go so far as to say that this is his finest soundtrack barring Jaatishwar. This is music at its inspired best, which the film unfortunately is not equal to providing. The music deserved a better film, and on its own cannot salvage what is on offer.

After two films that for me showed glimpses of the Srijit of old—Padatik and Shotyi Bole Shotyi Kichhu Nei—I was hoping the filmmaker would extend that run. Of course, a sequel to Hemlock Society is not quite what inspires hope that a film will break new ground. However, one is always rooting for Srijit to go out on a limb and deliver. Unfortunately, with Killbill Society he is not even trying. He is playing it safe—he can make films like these with his eyes closed—and failing creatively big time. And that’s sad because I know how close the film is to his heart.