Kennedy teaser: Rahul Bhat is a ruthless killer and Sunny Leone is a femme fatale in Anurag Kashyap’s Cannes drama

The first teaser of Anurag Kashyap’s intriguing feature Kennedy gives audiences a first proper look at the title character played by Rahul Bhat. He is a former police officer who operates at night due to his insomnia and from the looks of it, enjoys killing. The teaser also shows a brief look at Sunny Leone’s character Charlie who fills in the role of the femme fatale in this dark noir drama. (Also read: Anurag Kashyap shares new stills of Rahul Bhat, Sunny Leone from Kennedy ahead of Cannes premiere)

Writer-director Anurag shared the teaser on Instagram and asked his followers, “Bataaaa…kitna maza aaya…yeh teaser dekh ke?! (Tell me, how much fun did you have watching the teaser?). Kennedy by Anurag Kashyap premieres at @FestivalDeCannes on May 24 followed by the @sydfilmfest.” The 1 minute 14 seconds trailer shows Rahul as Kennedy operating silently in the night as he goes about offing people. A voiceover in the teaser states, “Bataa… Kitne qatal kiye tune. Bataa… kitna mazaa aaya. Behisab, chal hi raha hai, toh apne laash ki keemat lagata chal. Kyunki baaki raha to kuch aur, kuch bhi nahin (Tell me… how many people did you kill? Tell me… how much did you enjoy it? Unaccountable, it has been going on, so now you have to pay for these crimes. Because now, nothing else is left).”

Sunny’s Charlie arrives at the end of the teaser when she enters the lift with Kennedy and lets out a short laugh when she sees him. Prior to that, a man, who we don’t see, screams at Kennedy, “Who are you? You tell me, what’s your name?” Anurag’s daughter Aliyah Kashyap commented, “Too goooood (fire emoji).” While Zoya Akhtar wrote, “Supreme (smiling face and red heart emojis).” His former assistant director Vasan Bala stated, “Khatarnak (Deadly).”

Kennedy will be shown out of competition at the 76th Cannes Film Festival later this month in the Midnights Screening Section. It also stars Mohit Takalkar, Abhilash Thapliyal and Megha Burman.

In a statement, Anurag shared, “I’ve lived with the character for a very long time since I was writing for Sudhir Mishra and he used to tell me stories of this mad policeman. Then years later during the lockdown, a headline incident happened in Mumbai and that triggered an idea and I took the cop from Sudhir Mishra’s stories and put him around that incident and Kennedy was born. It’s one of those ones that suddenly comes to you and you write relentlessly till it’s fully formed. Then I was lucky to find people who believed in it as much as I did, and it just happened.”