'Karam' Movie Review: A Generic, Lifeless Action Movie Written Around Genre Cliches

There were instances during Karam where you are led to believe you’ve entered into the wrong screen at the multiplex. This begins right from the first shot when when we’re asked to guess if a particular chase is taking place in India or elsewhere. Of course we see Noble Babu Thomas (Dev) in the frame and we’re told that he’s just missed a shot at the most notorious militant in the world, but the imagery is so devoid of specificity that it could be any Mallu action hero running away from bad guys in any continent in any part of the world and it wouldn’t make a difference. A scene later, it’s when Dev gets court-marshalled that we learn that these two are Indian soldiers, out to take on a threat against India. The generic Europeanness of the location is something we need to interpret as the story taking place in some idyllic North Indian hill station, along the lines of Shimla.

This isn’t such a big deal if these portions were a part of a flashback or visuals the film gets too after it has set up its world. But when the start itself is so cold, both figuratively and literally, none of these people look or feel real. Their heartbreak or their childhood trauma feels more like a plot point or an excuse for the plot to kick in, rather than a detail that makes Dev close to us. Even so, given the film’s pitch as an action movie and nothing more, we learn to forgive this bland setup in exchange for the promise of some kickass action.

Apparently, even that appears to be too much to ask from Karam. Vineeth Sreenivasan, known for his ability to connect the viewer to the most basic of emotions, feels surprisingly out of depth as he crosses over to Europe, far away from North Kerala and Madras, both places Vineeth knows like the back of his hand. As Dev and his wife travel to Lenarco (shot in Georgia), the alienation is complete. The notion seems to have been to shoot an action movie like one of the Bourne movies by setting it in Europe. After the film decoys us into believing that it is going to be about Dev taking on his Indian army duties, we’re misled into another Vineeth Sreenivasan-staple: human trafficking. The co-incidences one needs to accept on face value to continue buying into this film are so farfetched, that you wonder if Vineeth intended for it be a spoof of any generic action thriller. 

A still from 'Karam'

This includes running into perhaps the only pimps in Europe to speak Malayalam fluently. The issue isn’t that even this sub-plot begins with Dev randomly having to go to a bar. It feels even more abrupt when a chance meeting with this pimp turns into a ridiculously convenient ploy to connect Dev to his past. Of course, in a Vineeth Sreenivasan romance, we’re all too happy to believe how “of all the gin joints in all the world, he had walks into hers.” But in an action movie devoid of any fantasy, it feels downright silly for Dev to walk in to the only brothel in the world to have mattered the most to him.

Nothing that happens after is surprising. The action blocks are as generic as they come and the only idea that got me remotely invested in is that of Dev having to protect two families—one that is his present, and one that could have been his present. But what makes you feel like the film takes a serious detour is the casting. You feel this awkwardness when they’ve cast Johny Anthony to play the role of the lover’s strict father. You feel it even more with the comic pitch to Baburaj’s gangster character. From a film that takes itself too seriously, it switches gears, almost like it has lost confidence by shifting towards a spoof-like zone. In what can only be termed as cringe, we get a boomer joke that involves a wannabe Indian doctor and a strip of Dolo 650. It’s a joke that needn’t have landed even as an SMS in 1998. But in 2025, in a dark action movie set in Europe, it urges you to reach towards the screen and swallow that entire strip of Dolo.

It’s not that one feels Vineeth is incapable of handling serious topics with real style. He’s done that in Thira before this and even in parts of Jacobinte Swargarajyam. But with Karam, he’s made a film that’s so out of his zone that we’re made to absorb the full weight of his discomfort. Of all the things you’d taken for granted in a Vineeth Sreenivasan film, heart or hridayam is strangely what’s missing most in Karam.