Kartam Bhugtam Movie Review: Slippery Fakery

Kartam Bhugtam Star Cast/ Actors: Shreyas Talpade As Dev Joshi, Madhoo Shah as anna’s housewife, Vijay Raaz as tantrik anna, Aksha Pardasany as Shreyas’s girlfriend, Gaurav Daagar as Gaurav, Rohann Sharma as Raja.

 Kartam Bhugtam Director: Soham P. Shah

Kartam Bhugtam Release Date: May 17, 2024

Kartam Bhugtam Available On: Theatrical Release and (likely to be released on Zee5 ott plateform)

Kartam Bhugtam Released/ Available In Languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada & Malayalam.

Kartam Bhugtam Runtime: 132 Minutes

Kartam Bhugtam Critic Review:

Writer-director Soham P Shah has a few strengths which are evident. One is that even his revenge stories do not have a routine setting. Just when you settle down to the
uncomfortable ambience of Anna (Vijay Raaz) and his spot-on numerological predictions which draw in a troubled Dev Joshi (Shreyas Talpade), Soham resets everything.

You’ve seen New Zealander Dev land in Bhopal to sort out his late father’s property and money matters. You’ve just seen Dev’s close friend Gaurav (Gaurav Daagar, also the casting agent of the film) take off for UAE after Anna’s accurate calculations that soon it’ll be “dirham mein prasad” for him. And you’ve seen Dev go through harrowing red tape at every turn. Buddy Gaurav’s temple trips with a casual reference to bhagwanbharose.com seems a workable mantra for Dev to fall back on.

So far so good especially with an interesting background score (Amar Mohile) and lingering numbers like Hariharan’s Hey kaal roopam (music Shabbir Ahmed). Santhosh Thundiyil’s camerawork also helps build the brooding presence of Anna.

And then the writing slips.

The transformation in Dev and the realisation that he’s in the centre of a scam don’t build up with the same dramatic impact as the initial sequences that introduce Anna.

The tone also turns erratic. There’s unnecessary frivolity in the air. Suddenly, Anna’s docile wife Lakshmi (Madhoo Shah) is presented like some comic relief with a marked south Indian accent and what’s done to her face is supposed to be inexplicable comedy during a tense stark moment.

All the pieces fall too simplistically into place for Dev and girlfriend Jia (Aksha Pardasany) who has flown in from New Zealand. There is a rush to wind things up with Bangkok as a backdrop where you can apparently run amok to take revenge without question.

The idea that blind faith in astrology and numerology does not pay and watch out for
charlatans, are good takeaways.

Pitting Shreyas Talpade with Vijay Raaz is efficient casting, and both perform like the
veterans they are. But the hurried narration stops it from being a taut psychological thriller. There are too many questions that run like mice in the mind over the unlimited wickedness of the scamsters who are casual even with a murder or two.

Kartam Bhugtam is a potent title. ’What goes around, comes around’ or ‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ are universal takes on karma. But when revenge is orchestrated by a human, is it the same as nature teaching you a lesson or karma catching up with you?

Kartam Bhugtam – Watch Or Not?: An intriguing premise which has its moments only for ardent fans of the genre.

Kartam Bhugtam Review Score Rating:  2.5 out of 5 (i.e. 2.5/5)

Kartam Bhugtam Official Trailer:

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