One brilliant actor, One gripping movie.. Review on Karthik Calling Karthik

As some of my friends would be aware, Bollywood movies usually give me a severe headache. They are too loud, too long and too full of emotion and overacting; or so I thought until sometime recently. I used to watch Hindi movies (as they were called that time) quite often when I was in school and college. So I watched all the movies of Amitabh Bachan when he was an ‘angry young man’ like Trishul, Deewar, Sholay and also of Dharmendra, etc. But then at one stage I outgrew them and simply gave up watching Hindi movies. In fact the last movie that I saw during those times was Dharam Veer. After that I only focused on Hollywood movies which I enjoyed very much.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, don’t know which one), my wife continued to enjoy watching these movies. So some years back on her insistence I took the chance of watching a couple of Hindi movies again. She somehow convinced me that these were very light, short and “no headache” movies. I thus saw ‘Jab we met’ after more than a decade long hiatus. And what can I say, I enjoyed it thoroughly. After that day I realized that the times had changed and those days of deary Hindi movies that went on and on with someone crying ‘MAAA’ a hundred times were a thing of the past and better crisper and vibrant ones had started coming to the multiplexes these days. Well I wouldn't say that it opened the floodgates but I surely did start seeing some selected good, well recommended Hindi movies. After JWM I saw, Chak De India and also Dev D, both of which were excellent works of art and made for enjoyable viewing. Later or in between I saw a couple more, which I more or less enjoyed.

Since the issue of watching or not watching Bollywood had somewhat taken a back seat, so also my negotiations with my wife on what jeaner to watch, have gone down considerably. So the other day when we went to a multiplex to watch a movie, we had not even decided what we will see! Even contemplating such a situation a few years back would have been difficult. A movie by the name of ‘Karthik calling Karthik’ seemed to be the most conveniently placed with respect to its timings, and so we decided to watch that one.

I had of cource never seen either of Deepika Padukone or Farhan Akhter before so had no idea what their performance would be like. But I must say I was very pleasantly surprised. The movie is about a young man, called Karthik, a few years into his job after completing his management cource, but unable to cope with the pressures of dealing with his boss, collegues and also the world in general. He has some old unresolved complex and guilt feeling for which he is actually consulting a psychiatrist too, but the same dosent seem to be helping too much. He reaches a stage where he gets blamed for almost everything that goes wrong in the office and ultimately his boss also fires him.

Faced with a situation that he is mentally and physically totally unable to handle, and is on the verge of committing suicide , when he receives a phone call… And this is no ordinary phone call. The caller claims to be Karthik, the guy himself, and says that he can help our poor hero. Obviously Karthik is shocked out of his wits but at the same time as the caller is encouraging, he listens to him. Stangely these calls keep coming everyday at the same time and each day provide Karthik with support and encouragement in dealing with all his situations. Slowly Karthik becomes a confident young man, gets his job back as also the girl whom he always liked in the office.

So life is going quite well for our Hero now and he has a job, a girl and loads of confidence. His daily calls continue, but he is never able to find out who calls him as the telephone company has no record of any such calls. However now our hero is not the one to be bothered with such trivia. But trouble starts when his girlfriend finds out about this little detail in Karthiks life. She being the confident and savvy woman of today, is unwilling to accept that her boyfriend insists on talking to the phone when hes not sure who the caller is, or if there really is any caller or not.

Torn between his love and the caller who has given him the confidence to face the world, Karthik doesn't know what to do. The game takes a turn for the worst, when the caller comes to know that Karthik is ignoring him and not following his advise anymore. The anonymous caller turns very venomous and starts to destroy all that Karthik has built and achieved. Very soon Karthik again finds himself jobless, with his girlfriend too gunning for him. But this time around Karthik decides to fight it out. Will this strange caller leave Karthik alone even now. How will Karthik go about rebuilding his lost love and life. Will he succeed, and if so how. These are the questions that this film answers and also in the most logical and scientific manner. Who the caller was and how does Karthik manage to get rid of him, see the film to find out.

The Plot was extremely gripping and till the last scene of the movie the viewers would not know what the suspense was. Excellent story and Drama. There is not one moment in the film that the pace slackens, or the story strays. Even the songs seem to well interwoven that you might be forgiven if you fail to notice them. However that is not to say that the music is not good. On the contrary its very peppy and likable.

The acting of Farhan Akhter as Karthik is a class apart. Till now I thought only Abhay Deol could give such natural and good acting as he did in Dev D, but I was very impressed with this new age actors of Hindi Cinema. There was nothing loud or outrageously emotional about what Farhan did. He was completely natural. In fact it was quite late into the movie that I realized what a good performance this guy was giving; since I did not even notice that it’s a performance till then! Superbly natural acting from him. Puts him instantly in the same class as Abhay Deol.

Looking at this performance one would naturally be inclined to think what stupid and foolish comical stunts actors like Akshay Kumar do.