Sweet Karma

Caught this film on Prime late at night (seems apt; right?). As a movie it is at once better than most of the poor reviews and worse than it has to be. I expect I am a sucker for any 'poor vulnerable girl left alone gets even with all who've mistreated her' stories and that's basically the plot here.

Shera Bechard does a pretty good job as Karma, an innocent mute girl from Russia attempting to avenge her sister's death at the hands of Russian sex traffickers in Toronto. It takes a bit of concentration to follow the timeframe as there are several flashbacks and the mute girl isn't explaining her backstory for you to understand her motivation. But that may be part of the grand design here.

Note her name: 'Karma', which in spite of how Anna explains her sister's name is really what her mission is. It's literary irony in the vein of Edgar Allan Poe. Don't tempt Karma!

Other than Shera Bechard the other actor of note is John Tokatlidis who plays the only other character with a substantive backstory - part of the twist ending so I won't reveal it here. Suffice to say the viewer should mind the other characters, even the baddies, because they do flesh out the picture somewhat.

Caveats: the violence is gory at times; the sex scenes are unpleasant; the club dancing is almost boring; the outdoor scenes are cold, dark and bleak; the language is crude and unimaginative - all deliberately so, to maintain the theme of the story, which is that the sex trade has absolutely NO glamour or nobility to it even if you think it might seem interesting, as a story theme, in just some macabre way. So it's easy to dismiss this as a 'bad movie' when it's really just a pretty good movie about really bad people in a really bad business doing really bad things (most of whom meet really bad ends).

Watch it late at night when nothing else is on - and pay attention. Maybe you'll see what I mean.

The last few years have seen many an attempt at emulating the 'grindhouse' style of the 70s and early 80s, with the aid of retro graphics, editing and music, plus computerised filters applied during post production to give that cheap, grainy drive-in look and feel. Sweet Karma employs none of these fancy tricks, and yet it proves to be one of the more satisfying exploitation experiences in recent memory: the film-makers tell their cool revenge tale with the requisite levels of sex and violence, but without any of the artificiality or pretension that has spoilt many a similarly themed movie. For once, this feels like the real deal rather than an OTT tribute or parody.

Playboy playmate Shera Bechard plays the titular character Karma, a beautiful mute Russian girl who goes looking for her sister Anna (Patricia Stasiak), who travelled to Canada in search of work only to find herself forced into Toronto's underground sex trade by ruthless criminals. Using both her brains and her scorching hot bod, Karma sets about dispatching the low-life thugs, sparking a gang war in the process, and it's not long before Toronto is knee deep in dead scumbags. This plot clearly owes a lot to classic exploitation films such as Ms.45 and They Call Her One Eye, but it still manages to carve its own identity, helped by some believable performances, well executed brutality, and a few unexpected plot turns, including a cool twist ending that genuinely caught me by surprise.

I caught this film at Fantastic Fest in Austin, during a sold out screening. Clearly the reason the screening was sold out is that the lead actress was in attendance, days after winning an award for Next Wave Best Actress, so everyone wanted to know what the fuss was about. I won't bother going into the details about the plot since it's covered here by others, but I gotta say this was a cool little film. It's a nice modern take on the old style 70's revenge film. It's got a great energy, an engaging story, some bad-ass, albeit low-rent kill scenes, and yes, the performance from the first-time lead actress is a knock-out. She owns the screen. From the reaction of the audience, and the fact that almost 3/4 of them stuck around for the Q&A, I'd safely say that most others would agree with me. A perfect film? No. But a solid, must-see piece of entertainment? You bet.

Playboy Playmate of the Month (November 2010) Shera Bechard gives acting a whirl. This is her first, and possibly only film, so you better run to see it.

A 70s style revenge flick that takes place largely in a strip club run by the Russian mafia, it is violent and titillating at the same time.

Naturally, the mob suspects a rival, not the sister of one of it's girls. That will give Karma time to kill a few more.

The bodies keep piling up as Karma seeks revenge only to find in the end that the cost may be too high.

Cool action in a seedy setting.

I enjoyed this movie. It had a nice pace, the lead actress was believable and gorgeous and who doesn't like seeing Euro Sex Slave Brokers in Toronto get their payback? This flick could have easily been an 8 or 9. It was simple, fun and compelling. But it just ran out of steam. The ending is pretty bland and unsatisfying. I mean, the whole movie you are watching the mute girl kick ass and you are waiting for her to SAY something or at least show more of her real self. She even writes on a piece of paper "What I am doing is not who I am", so there is this unresolved set up. Who is she? How does she feel about what she is doing? But don't get me wrong, this is fun, well-acted, low-budget, badly-lit B Movie action. Other reviewers have compared it to 1970s Grind-house and I can see the similarities. But it's really more than that. With a better ending and a little more production, this would have been a contender.

Totally watchable. Better than you think. The lead girl does a good job plus the eye candy is great. Watch it without your wife.