‘Karmma Calling’ Hotstar Series Review - Don’t Pick Up

The laughably bad filmmaking in Karmma Calling brought to mind the comically awful production quality of Sultan of Delhi. Both shows collapse as soon as their characters start talking. The dialogues are so desperately showy and terrible that they not only evoke snickers but also continuously remind you that what you are watching is fictional. Consider this line: "Tumhara protein kisi aur ko shake kar raha hai." Indrani Kothari (Raveena Tandon), a retired movie star, thanks her guests for coming to the "engagement of hamara Ahaan and Karma." This mixture of Hindi and English sounds extremely painful to your ears. More grating is the flirty exchanges between Dash (Piyush Khati) and Mira (Devangshi Sen), an influencer and Indrani's daughter. The scene where he gives his Instagram ID to her makes you go, "Ugh!" And how can you forget that "Kadwa Chauth" remark? I would have laughed at all this unintentional humor, but the sheer incompetence of this series leaves you enervated.

Director Ruchi Narain takes Mike Kelley's Revenge and places it in an Indian context. Hence, you hear ponderous lines about god and karma. A character's voiceover tells us that god can forgive, but karma doesn't. "Karma" here doesn't simply refer to a person's deeds. It also refers to the main character named, well, Karma (Namrata Sheth). She, too, has no intentions of granting forgiveness. She wants to take revenge by harming all those people who destroyed her father. Rohit Roy plays this father character. His name is Satyajeet, so brace yourself for that line where he mentions that he always says "satya." It quickly becomes apparent that he is dead, thanks to the cutesy flashbacks. These shots are meant to be sentimental, but their cheapness makes you squirm.

Karmma Calling is suspenseless. It's a thriller without any thrills, a drama devoid of dramatic powers. By opening the show with Karma and Ahaan's (Varun Sood) engagement, Narain removes tension from the events. We watch everything with the knowledge that Karma will eventually get engaged with Ahaan, so whenever she faces obstacles, we merely wait for her to overcome them. What's more, Zane Khan (Viraf Patel), a tech expert, helps Karma in her mission. He does his job so effortlessly that we further don't worry about Karma's situation. Narain fails to add excitement to her scenes. Every frame looks bland. While watching this series, you become a passive viewer.

It's funny that a show that stands on infidelity, among other things, looks so sexless. The characters are rendered hollow. There is no trace of chemistry between them. It doesn't help that every actor gives a completely different performance. Tandon seems to be living in the soap opera world. Sood is stuck in a teenage romance. Waluscha D'Souza exists in the zone of erotic drama, and Rachit Singh is so broody and tasteful that he probably must be thinking that his performance will earn him an Oscar nomination. There is too much dissonance. Only Sheth looks agreeable.

The Kothari's are rich, while the café owners Dash and Vedant are poor. This means you get the obligatory "the rich are soulless" remarks, which produce yawns. It's almost distressing how lackluster Karmma Calling is. The shots are indifferently composed. The series reeks of contempt for the audience and might as well be made with the notion that we are nothing but consumers who will mindlessly swallow anything without being able to differentiate between what's good and what's terrible. I spent my entire time wondering why the show is titled Karmma Calling and not Karma Calling. What's the story behind those double m's? I found this question more interesting than anything I saw in this show.

Final Score- [2/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times