Movie: Karthik calling Karthik

The movie, Karthik Calling Karthik, turned out to be an unexpectedly well made movie - with strong acting, good cinematography and a well-paced narrative, marred by relatively light characters and a weak ending. Directed by Vijay Lalwani, the movie is a departure from standard Bollywood fare of song-saturated extravaganzas, instead focusing on a story line that raises interesting questions about the role and impact of technology in today's changing world. Supporting a brooding Farhaan Akhtar in the lead role as the movie's namesake, Deepika Padukone delivers a peppy performance as his love interest.

SPOILER ALERT! Ending not given away, but discussed

The movie is about Karthik (Farhaan) a brilliant yet deeply flawed character who is altogether invisible in his own life. He dreams of wooing a successful architect Shonali (Deepika), who works in his office, while utterly failing to keep his home or job. When all seems lost he begins receiving phone calls that seem to hold the key to reversing his luck - from none other than himself.

Buoyed by the unexpected source of support, Karthik is not only able to get his job back, but turns up his confidence to win over Shonali. Everything turns around on a dime. Admittedly such a transformation is difficult to portray during the course of a movie, but the original portrayal of the character was so starkly incompetent that the reversal wasn't quite believable.

This all, however, comes crashing down quickly once Karthik does the one thing disallowed by the voice on the phone - reveal its existence to anyone. Annoyed by the betrayal, the voice on the phone turns rogue destroying everything it helped create, forcing Karthik to flee everything to a place without a telephone. As he tries to piece together a new life, circumstances conspire to make Karthik confront the voice on the phone one last time.

The movie uses a series of subtle clues throughout that help tie it together, but are a dead giveaway of the ending. The unsolved rubik's cube acts as a portent of Karthik's state of mind. There is a good use of color and saturation, cleverly reflecting the mood of the scene. And the pace of narrative is consistent through out, flitting easily between humorous, scary and tense.

All in all, if you like psychological thrillers this movie is a must watch. Even if you don't - Karthik Calling Karthik is a great option to keep you up and interested for two and a half hours.