Sweet Karma

Caught this film on Prime late at night (seems apt; right?). As a movie it is at once better than most of the poor reviews and worse than it has to be. I expect I am a sucker for any 'poor vulnerable girl left alone gets even with all who've mistreated her' stories and that's basically the plot here.

Shera Bechard does a pretty good job as Karma, an innocent mute girl from Russia attempting to avenge her sister's death at the hands of Russian sex traffickers in Toronto. It takes a bit of concentration to follow the timeframe as there are several flashbacks and the mute girl isn't explaining her backstory for you to understand her motivation. But that may be part of the grand design here.

Note her name: 'Karma', which in spite of how Anna explains her sister's name is really what her mission is. It's literary irony in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe. Don't tempt Karma!

Other than Shera Bechard the other actor of note is John Tokatlidis who plays the only other character with a substantive backstory - part of the twist ending so I won't reveal it here. Suffice to say the viewer should mind the other characters, even the baddies, because they do flesh out the picture somewhat.

Caveats: the violence is gory at times; the sex scenes are unpleasant; the club dancing is almost boring; the outdoor scenes are cold, dark and bleak; the language is crude and unimaginative - all deliberately so, to maintain the theme of the story, which is that the sex trade has absolutely NO glamour or nobility to it even if you think it might seem interesting, as a story theme, in just some macabre way. So it's easy to dismiss this as a 'bad movie' when it's really just a pretty good movie about really bad people in a really bad business doing really bad things (most of whom meet really bad ends).

Watch it late at night when nothing else is on - and pay attention. Maybe you'll see what I mean.

"Sweet Karma" have, what sounded like, an interesting storyline. Karma's sister Anna travels from Russia to Canada under the impression to work there as a housemaid. Karma never hears from her sister, never receives any money, and decides to go to Canada and look for her sister. Signing up with the same company that sent Anna to Canada, Karma discovers that it is in fact a human trafficking ring supplying prostitutes and erotic dancers. Bent on revenge, Karma takes down the ones responsible, one by one, and with every weapon at her disposal.

Sounded great, didn't it? Yeah, unfortunately there was nothing new or innovating to be seen in "Sweet Karma". It had all been seen in movies before; a woman out for revenge, an undercover cop in too deep with the bad guys, the woman bringing down an entire cartel all by her lonely self, and women being suppressed and forced into shady work. With those things lined up, "Sweet Karma" didn't really rise above mediocrity.

Don't get me wrong, the movie is actually quite good and manages to keep you riveted to the seat until the very end. But lacking new ideas and execution in movie style, then "Sweet Karma" was a bit tame.

The people in the movie were actually doing good jobs with their roles. And the lead role of Karma was played by Shera Bechard was particularly well performed, especially because she didn't speak a single word throughout the entire movie.

One of the things that I really liked about "Sweet Karma" was the feel you got from the scenes and scenery. It was gritty, dirty and foreboding. And that worked really well, because you had the sensation of being in a bad and low place; which the women also were. So thumbs up on the way they used that to the movie's advantage.

Personally, I just didn't fully buy into the story, that a woman singlehandedly could manage to unwrap the human trafficking ring all by herself and take them down the way she did. Some of the violence scenes were actually quite well executed, though, I will give them that. But in general, I just didn't see the storyline as that plausible.

"Sweet Karma" is good entertaining for an evening of movies where you don't have to use your brain. This movie invites you to just disable and sit back in the couch and watch it for being entertained. Now, I know that things like what was portrayed in the movie actually does occur all around the world, but still, the movie didn't leave me with any lingering afterthoughts in any regards.

I enjoyed this movie. It had a nice pace, the lead actress was believable and gorgeous and who doesn't like seeing Euro Sex Slave Brokers in Toronto get their payback? This flick could have easily been an 8 or 9. It was simple, fun and compelling. But it just ran out of steam. The ending is pretty bland and unsatisfying. I mean, the whole movie you are watching the mute girl kick ass and you are waiting for her to SAY something or at least show more of her real self. She even writes on a piece of paper "What I am doing is not who I am", so there is this unresolved set up. Who is she? How does she feel about what she is doing? But don't get me wrong, this is fun, well-acted, low-budget, badly-lit B Movie action. Other reviewers have compared it to 1970s Grind-house and I can see the similarities. But it's really more than that. With a better ending and a little more production, this would have been a contender.

Totally watchable. Better than you think. The lead girl does a good job plus the eye candy is great. Watch it without your wife.

I saw the world premiere of this movie at the 2009 Fantasia Movie Festival in Montreal. I went in with an open mind, not necessarily hoping or dreading anything. But I have to admit, my initial thoughts were that the "rape revenge" thing has been done to death. It seems like an easy way to have sex and violence in your movie and draw the most typical movie-watching crowd (ie. an easy way to make a fast buck).

Sweet Karma surprised me. Right off the bat, the movie has a very dark and gritty feel to it that draws you in. Shera Bedard is awesome as Karma, avenging the death of her sister. Having the "heroine" be a mute added a great dimension to her character. She does a great job of expressing emotions and intentions through her eyes and body language. She's really believable as a shy young woman who has nothing left to lose and forces herself to take out her anger on those who're responsible. This also adds an unexpected complexity to the movie, since Karma can't tell her story herself. There are sporadic "flashback"-type scenes early on which help to clarify things, and these do a great job of helping us understand what's going on.

Most of the rest of the cast is great too. The Russian accents don't sound forced or fake. The main "bad guys" are especially despicable, and I found myself wanting Karma to succeed in her self-appointed mission. One exception is John Tokatlidis, who was neither believable nor very interesting. In fact, when his character is focused on about halfway through, the movie's quality goes down a couple notches. He manages to bring it down all by himself.

One of the big draws for me about Sweet Karma is the fact that it's a purely Canadian movie. The story is based in Toronto, and it was entirely filmed there. Everything was financed by the crew, apparently with no outside help. Unfortunately, it seems like the story could've happened anywhere just by changing a few words in the script. There were almost no recognizable Toronto landmarks, and very few Toronto-specific scenes except maybe the airport. There's a scene near the beginning of the movie where the bad guys are joking about forming a hockey team, but it feels tacked-on and out of place. Almost like someone said "Hey, this movie doesn't feel Canadian enough, let's add some hockey dialog!" Despite this, it's great to see a purely Canadian production that's so engrossing and entertaining. Maybe the fact that it doesn't really "feel" Canadian is a good thing since the movie can appeal to a bigger audience outside the country... if they cut out that scene with the hockey dialog.

Obviously, sex and violence were portrayed. But not in an over-the-top way, only in a realistic way that fit with the theme of the movie. This definitely isn't PG-13 stuff, but it's not gratuitous either.

The rest of the audience really seemed to enjoy the movie too. There was loud applause after the credits, and the questions that people asked the crew during the Q&A session showed a lot of interest.

I'm really glad I went to see Sweet Karma, it's an excellent take on the old "revenge" theme. For me, nothing will ever beat High Plains Drifter as the best "revenge" movie, but Sweet Karma comes close, and ranks right up there as one of the best movies I've seen recently. For a purely independent film, the production values were really high, even matching or exceeding some of the stuff coming out of Hollywood these days... especially the ones that pretend to be "nitty gritty".

I caught this film at Fantastic Fest in Austin, during a sold out screening. Clearly the reason the screening was sold out is that the lead actress was in attendance, days after winning an award for Next Wave Best Actress, so everyone wanted to know what the fuss was about. I won't bother going into the details about the plot since it's covered here by others, but I gotta say this was a cool little film. It's a nice modern take on the old style 70's revenge film. It's got a great energy, an engaging story, some bad-ass, albeit low-rent kill scenes, and yes, the performance from the first-time lead actress is a knock-out. She owns the screen. From the reaction of the audience, and the fact that almost 3/4 of them stuck around for the Q&A, I'd safely say that most others would agree with me. A perfect film? No. But a solid, must-see piece of entertainment? You bet.