Film Review: KARTHIK CALLING KARTHIK

Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Deepika Padukone, Shefali Shah, Ram Kapoor
Director: Vijay Lalwani

THE STORY:

Karthik (Farhan Akhtar) is a prize loser। He works extremely hard at a builder’s office but gets treated terribly in return by his boss (Ram Kapoor). He is silently in love with Shonali (Deepika Padukone) who works in the same office, but she is not even aware that he exists. Karthik will not use a cell phone as he believes it will fry his brains. The peon at work laughs at him disrespectfully for this very reason. All his colleagues treat Karthik like dirt. Then there is his landlord who nags him to pay an extra amount as deposit or threatens to throw him out of his flat. Karthik has a recurring nightmare that tops everything – of two little boys of which he is the younger one. The older boy falls into the well by accident and dies. His psychiatrist (Shefali Shah) insists that Karthik is not responsible for his older brother’s death. But nothing helps Karthik. His life gets worse day by day!

It is the last straw when his boss throws Karthik out of his job for no fault of his while Karthik also gets to know that Shonali does not know of his existence. Karthik goes home, utterly defeated. He gets more and more depressed until he decides to commit suicide by consuming sleeping pills.

It is five am when his phone rings, stopping him from popping the pills into his mouth. There is a man on the phone who insists that he is also Karthik. He seems to know everything about our loser hero including his bank account PIN number and the colour of the socks that he is wearing.

Fortunately for Karthik, whoever that man is, he helps him turn into a confident young man. Karthik turns confident, takes to power-dressing, gets his job back with four times the salary he used to earn, gets a separate cabin for himself, has his landlord eating out of his hand and the best of the lot – Shonali becomes his girlfriend.

While Karthik-on-phone guides the geek-Karthik, things get better and better. But then it is time for the twist in the tale. Karthik-on-phone tells geek-Karthik not to talk about these phone calls to anybody on earth. But Karthik breaks his promise to tell Shonali and everything goes down the drain. What happens after this point is for everyone to find out for themselves.

MY PERCEPTION:

Superb movie! Short and well-made within a span of two hours and a few more minutes! Farhan has definitely had a say in the film-making, it appears, as it sure has his touches. The editing is crisp and the film flows well. As Karthik, Farhan’s performance is nothing short of brilliant. The man’s expressions – facial, body language, intonation in dialogue – are just awesome. During his makeover from a Geek to a confident young man, Farhan still manages to capture the innocence of Karthik who has just changed on the outside but still quite the same from within. His lack of confidence hits you whenever he lifts the phone to say ‘hello’.

Deepika was great in Love Aaj Kal and she is better in this movie. Her on-screen chemistry with Farhan and the dialogue delivery are too good. She’s a gorgeous babe who can act too.

Shefali Shah as the psychiatrist has a small role that is impactful. Ram Kapoor is okay as the boss – not much scope for acting but he was good.

The music was wonderful, all background. A special kudos to Shankar Ehsaan Loy for that!

VERDICT: This one is definitely for the metros and multiplexes.

Rating: **** Snazzy

* Silly
** Shaky
*** Smart
**** Snazzy
***** Super