SWEET KARMA (Andrew Thomas Hunt). Opens Friday (March 11) at the Bloor Cinema. See listings. Rating: N
Except for one and a half okay moments, Sweet Karma lies dead in the water. Moment one is a rape that turns into a pencil killing. The one-half involves a climactic surprise that needs a suicide to make it complete.
The film is essentially a woman’s revenge flick. Karma (Shera Bechard) follows her sister from Russia to Toronto, killing as she goes, when the latter is hijacked into the sex trade.
If you’ve seen Ms. 45 or I Spit On Your Grave, the genre’s acknowledged classics, you know how violent, bizarre, disturbing and/or titillating (provided you’re fairly twisted) these flicks can get. Not here. The action is brief, unimaginative and ineptly executed.
Between killings, guys with Russian accents hang around in cement-block motel rooms and apartments and bully unhappy-looking topless women. Their acting is as nondescript as the sets, the score and the occasionally out-of-focus camera work.
Perhaps Karma is mute as a tribute to the silent heroine of Ms. 45, or maybe Bechard, a model from Kapuskasing, couldn’t handle the Russian accent. Either way, both she and we are spared that much more of the turgid dialogue.
