Karma Calling

This move had a lot of promise, but failed to deliver.  The storyline is compelling, a Hindi family in New Jersey gets wrapped around an "Its a Small World" theme when the drowning-in-debt father gets played by an underworld Don who is connected to an Indian call center, where their smoothest operator falls for his daughter and his son mans-up to fall in love with a girl from the old country.

The treatment in this romantic comedy is so riddled with cliche that the humor fell flat.  There simply was no dramatic tension to balance the madcap.  Opportunity was there, it was all over the script, but this film became a study in what happens when you always take the easy choice instead of the hard one when writing a script.

Sarba Das and Sarthak Das co-wrote the script, as well as directing and producing the feature.  My thoughts are it needing more maturing and editing before it was ready for the screen.

Take the Raj family.  The father, Ram Raj (Darshan Jariwala) has his mailbox overflowing with collection notices, takes a loan out on his cab to buy-in to a credit fix scheme...with no consequences.  The eldest daughter, Sonal (Barnali Das), answers the constantly ringing phone which seaways to her developing a relationship with Rohit Rao AKA Rob Roy (Samrat Chakrabarti).  They both pretend to be someone they are not, discover the shame of misrepresenting themselves on such a superficial level that it is embarrassing to watch.

The only slightly funny moment for me was when the son, Shyam (Ansuman Das), decides to produce a Japanese rap album titled Hapa Means Weed in Japanese.  He falls for Radha (Kaci Ladnier), a beautiful Indian mail order bride who is flown in to marry Dollar Store mogul Nikhil (Rizwan Manji) whose personality is as shiny as his 99 cent mechandise.

The youngest daughter Jamuna (Ishani Desai), dreams of having a Bat Mitzvah, which is expressed in a disconnected dream sequence that reads very gratuitous.

The only true comic relief comes from Mausi (Sulekha Das), Ram's sister who comes to visit from India bringing her traditional ways with her.  It takes Das a while to settle into the role, but by the film's end she has become the sole character that has any creditability, although Ansuman Das was close to making that mark.

For some inexplicitable reason, Tony Sirico of The Sopranos provides voice for Ganesh, the Hindu god of success.   He narrates the film and is the protagonist for the happy Hollywood tie-it-all-up-in-a-pretty-pink-bow ending.  Why a Hindu god that looks like an elephant is supposed to sound like a gangster is beyond me.

New Jersey loved the film, it won Best Feature at their International Film Festival.  It also has taken home an Audience Award at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival and the Grand Festival Prize at the Berkeley Film & Video Festival.  See a preview of this feature at  Karma Calling trailer.