Karam Review | An Ultra-Derivative Action Film That Lacks Zest

One of the things about Thira that made it a favorite for many people, in my opinion, was the fact that, at that time, it was a movie that was trying to create something unique. Vineeth Sreenivasan stepped away from his comfort zone. It was a movie headlined by Shobana, and the casting choices and locations made it look so real on screen. The reason why I am talking about Thira in the Review for Vineeth Sreenivasan’s latest directorial venture, Karam, is that thematically it is like a spinoff or spiritual sequel to that film, as the backdrop of both movies has human trafficking. While Thira was an attempt based on facts and the characters were mostly grounded, Karam, written by Noble Babu Thomas, feels like a derivative product that one might aspire to make after watching several Hollywood agent movies. With the writing never managing to create that high moment, Karam, in my opinion, is the most underwhelming film in Vineeth Sreenivasan’s filmography.

Dev Mahendran is our main guy, and he is now living a happy married life with his wife and kid. His equation with his dad was always troublesome, and the man had a past that he was trying to forget because of multiple tragedies. At one point, Dev and family had to go to the city of Lenarco as his wife had a business meeting to attend. But that seemingly simple family trip takes a rough turn for some reason, and what we see here is how all that escalates into something big.

In terms of treatment, I would say the zone Vineeth Sreenivasan is trying to crack is much similar to Thira. But the scale and setting are different this time. And what is ironic is the fact that even though it is a thriller, the only thing that works for the audience is the humor (which wasn’t necessary) that happens mostly in the last half an hour of the film, with a lot of Malayalam/Malayali references. The setups are pretty obvious. There is a moment in the climax where we are shown how the hero came to know about the location. It is like we can see what they were trying to achieve, but unfortunately, the scene falls flat. Similarly, there are these obvious placements of lines that we can clearly see coming back at a later stage. Vineeth Sreenivasan himself has said that the Story is your routine man-on-a-mission stuff. However, their attempt is to make the mission look interesting for the viewer. Unfortunately, the writing struggles to crack anything that is original other than Dolo 650, Rajini-Kamal, and Jaba Jaba.

It is an action hero role, and in terms of looking like someone who can beat up people, Noble Babu Thomas has done a good job. When it comes to acting, it is his own writing that does not allow him to perform naturally. Some of the lines are overwritten, and including Noble, we can see that most of the actors are sticking to the written lines, and that lack of flexibility in saying dialogue is making scenes more and more generic. Audrey Miriam as Sana has got a good role here with multiple shades, and she was fine in that role. Reshma Sebastian plays the role of Thara, Dev’s wife. One of the most talked-about castings in this movie was that of Ivan Vukomanović as the main antagonist. While he was good at being intimidating on screen, it wasn’t really a well-written character to be memorable, and what happens to him at the end feels like an injustice compared to the buildup. Vishnu G. Varrier’s eccentric character didn’t really make much of an impression because of the repetitiveness. Since most of the supposed high moments were falling flat, Baburaj’s comedy felt like a relief even though it was mostly unnecessary. Kalabhavan Shajon, Manoj K Jayan, Shwetha Menon, and Johnny Antony are all part of the cast in roles with minimal screen time.

Vineeth Sreenivasan has stepped away from his usual space with this movie, and this is perhaps the first time he is not even the co-writer of a film that he is directing. Like Vineeth said in the interviews, Jomon T John is using a lot of silhouette shots in this movie. The lighting for most scenes has that naturally lit feel, and even in those visuals where you can see the neon lights having a presence, it is placed in a natural way. That style of slightly rugged handheld cinematography works in favor of this film. Vineeth is not a fan of violence, and one thing I found good about the way he captures violence was that, through the edits, he registers the impact of a gunshot, but he does not excessively focus on the gore. Shaan Rahman’s background score has this evident agenda of elevating the scenes, and even though he is trying to evoke the Kerala sentiment through the use of Chenda in the BGM, the scenes weren’t really in sync with that energy.

One of the things Vineeth Sreenivasan said about Karam was that he never wanted the foreign actors to say lines to make it comfortable for the Malayali audience to understand. But when it comes to the movie, not just the foreign characters, I felt even the Indian characters were saying lines to spoon-feed the audience. Subtlety is the strength of the kind of stories we make in Malayalam, and somewhere I feel the screenplay of Karam was trying to mimic the structure of similar movies made in other industries.