Karma(2009)

12 June 2009hindiCrime
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Storyline

Anna, who is an American by birth is married to an Indian NRI named Vikram Singh. She along with her husband visit India to the hometown of Vikram where she experiences of a Dj Vu. She recalls being there in her past life.

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Plot

Vikram (Carlucci Veyant), estranged and separated from his father, Ranvir (Vijayendra Ghatke), for the past thirty years, visits him in Ooty with his bride Anna (Alma Saraci) from New York at her insistence, but only for a day or two. The moment Anna alights from the train that brings them to the small town, she unwittingly becomes the medium of events including visions of a murder that took place in the woods surrounding Vik's father's home thirty years ago. With little love by Vik for his father, it is Anna, an orphan, who conspires with her father-in-law to change Vik's mind about staying longer and taking over his father's business. The hauntings now become more frequent and intense, making Anna sick to the point of her mental state of mind being questioned. Even though Anna had never set foot in Ooty, leave alone India before, she seems very familiar with the surroundings and even some people. Anna begins to questions some people who then see her as a threat. The nightmares occur more frequently and with more specificity. At first Vik accuses Anna of having some ingrained psychological problems, which hurt Anna deeply - but when strange inexplicable events happen to Vik himself he apologizes to Anna. Vik resolves to help Anna and when it is discovered that a murder had indeed taken place thirty years ago, together they try to solve the mystery. The spirit of Linda, raped and murdered thirty years ago, reincarnated as Anna, leads Anna and Vik to the discovery of the identity of the murderer.

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Critic Reviews

B
BMDB Critic

Karma : Crime, Passion and Reincarnation is on the brink of being one of those movies that everybody wishes was never made. But it saves itself with its brevity and compactness and some above- average direction by M R Shahjahan. It is the story of a young wife, Anna (Alma Saraci), who brings her husband Vik (Carlucci Weyant) to his hometown Ooty to reunite with his estranged father Ranvir (Vijayendra Ghatge). There she experiences immense Déjà vu and the rest , you'll figure out in the first ten minutes of the movie. Watch if you particularly enjoy watching Indian actors converse in artificial porcelain English! The movie begins with Anna and Vik coming down to Ooty. All is well in paradise and one wonders why there is a pseudo-haunting background score playing. Anna is delighted to be here and she fits right in. She touches her new sasu-ji's feet and brings him tea in the morning, the perfect bahu. Vik, on the other hand, is just not happy to be back. He is angry with his father for separating from his mother and walks around the house perpetually annoyed. Daddy is delighted that his only son is back and welcomes him home with a big party. While Anna is living it up, socializing with the Indians, a strange man blows cigarette smoke on her face. FREEZE. Eerie music ensues and Anna has her first-ever VISION. The whole room spins around her, there are masked people dancing everywhere, it looks like fun, maybe it is fun. The next thing we know, she's waking up disoriented on a bed, not knowing what to do! Poor thing, this really wasn't what she signed up for when she decided to come to sasural, did she? Anna's problems now manifest in less neurotic ways, she knows the city inside out, even though she's never been there before. She decides she wants to go to Lawrence University and her angry young husband obliges. There she first sees the troubled ghost, Linda. Then, in a bar, she has another déjà vu incident and annoys the old bar owner. A few more minor déjà vu incidents follow. Each such incident is preceeded by around 2 minutes of eerie ghost music, just in case the viewer wanted a warning. Worry not; the movie is un-scary to a fault. Barbie dolls are scarier! Slowly, the movie unravels a detailed death of a young Austrian woman Linda (Claudia Siesla) murdered by the masked man Anna had been seeing. Soon, through more un-scary visions, it dawns on Anna that she is actually Linda and her mind will not rest in peace until she finds out who was responsible. Thus ensues her husband's disbelief, some marital tiffs and finally acceptance. He approaches the inspector who, for some reason acts terribly menacing, despite the fact that he is playing only a minor supporting good guy role with no real weight, tells him, in not so many words to, google it. The awkward and inappropriate inspector leaves one wondering if the director should use a more stringent casting process in future. He reads newspaper articles of her disappeance,

B
BMDB Critic

Bollywood director M.R. Shahjahan seems to be living in the 70s and 80s when movies like Karma were accepted for a while. In fact, it seems to be highly 'inspired' by the film 1980s film 'Kudrat'. The plot is hackneyed and extremely predictable and it seems like there is nothing that can surprise the audience in the movie. The plot starts off with Anna (Alma Saraci) and Vik (Carlucci Weyant) being married and Anna insisting that Vik settle his issues with his estranged father in India Ranvir (Vijayendra Ghatge). On arriving in India, Anna experiences strange visions and a feeling of déjà vu in the surroundings though she has never been to that place or for that matter to the country before. After a while of pondering, (not for the audience who has already guessed a case of rebirth) they deduce that she is a reincarnation of Linda (Claudia Ciesla) who lived in the same place and was killed. The story continues with Linda haunting Anna and motivating her to solve the crime. The use of elements to create a 'horror movie' experience is clichéd and manages to bore the audience completely than incite any fear. The killer's identity is known to the audience way before the mystery is solved as it is very obvious. Many parts of the story are not made to clear either for example, the reason behind the father-son estrangement. The actors' performances are just mediocre. Claudia Ciesla doesn't seem to have much of a future in Bollywood due to her lack of acting ability or any screen presence and no guys, the film comes without her much talked about topless scene. Carlucci Weyant carries the same expression throughout the movie and Vijayendra Ghatge seems uninterested. Only Alma Saraci is worth mentioning as she is quite chilling as the spirit. The editing and cinematography are the best parts of the movie and the way past and present times are shown is impressive. A really dull film, I wouldn't really recommend it. It's one of those movies whose story you already know and would watch for the way it has been presented but that is again not impressive and you will only waste your time.

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