Karoline Kamakshi Review – a Shockingly Below Par Action-Comedy

BOTTOM LINE: a Shockingly Below Par Action-Comedy

Rating: 2/10

What Is the Story About?

A laidback CBI officer Kamakshi, hailing from an orthodox Brahmin family, is teamed up with a French agent Karoline to follow up on a mission to unearth Virgin Mary, an artefact stolen from Paris by a local gangster Furkin. The two women with contrasting mindsets share uneasy vibes, to begin with, but they bury the hatchet soon, bonding on the move over drinks and a few pelvic thrusts. Karoline Kamakshi traces the journey of the duo, their highs and lows during the mission and how their unlikely combination spells disaster for the baddies.

Performances?

Meena hasn’t looked more uncomfortable as an actor as much as she seems in Karoline Kamakshi. Probably because of the sheer carelessness with which her character is written, the veteran actress looks woefully out of form. Meena’s comic timing, an integral strength of hers, feels so loud and out of place. Though there was scope in her part to address the concerns of a working woman, that is last among the priorities of its makers. Senior character actor Y Gee Mahendra is only downsizing his stature with outings like these. As the CBI superior Chidambaram, he has embarrassing sequences aplenty that lack any wit or common sense.

Giorgia Andriani, the Italian model whose digital stint takes off with this series, has major dubbing issues and there’s no real arc to her character to come up with any sort of affecting performance. The other newbies, especially the cop, destroy any momentum that the series has at certain instances.

Analysis

It’s hard to imagine that a mainstream actress as popular as Meena had to pick a disastrous series like Karoline Kamakshmi for her digital debut. Publicised as an action-comedy, the series makes a mockery of a spectator’s intelligence. It’s neither humorous nor spine-chilling nor anything in between. With some poorly written sex jokes, a bunch of cuss words thrown in, besides characters that get onto your nerves enacted by a string of terrible actors, all you have is a below-par digital outing that should have been shelved right at the scripting stage.

Imagine a series about two female agents being deputed to find an artefact that ultimately turns out to be a mere hanky-like cloth? There is no seriousness in what the makers want to say. Meena’s character is so silly that her mother-in-law ridicules that she isn’t even fit enough to find her spectacles, what would she do with a mission? The lead character is only interested in her Brahminical rituals, sleeping at work than anything else. The two agents in the story hang around with men, booze at the bar, ridicule each other during the mission. Their focus is on anything but work.

The supposed antagonist Furkin is even a bigger joke, ticking every cliche that ever existed about a villain – shouting at the top of his voice with a burst of wicked laughter, sporting a french beard and wearing shorts as if he’s chilling by the poolside. He even stations his goons near a non-functional aeroplane (??). The storyteller addresses him like an international criminal, but his avatar and awkward responses make him seem worse than a streetside goon. The CBI backdrop, the police department are established with such disinterest that these distinguished institutions only house a group of creepy uncles who crack Whatsapp-forward-worthy jokes with their colleagues.

While the Tamil film industry is going full strength in breaking several cinematic conventions, the digital dimension of their entertainment industry is only getting worse by the day. Karoline Kamakshi hints at a second season but it’s an ordeal that no one deserves – from the clueless producer to the hapless viewer.

Music and Other Departments?

The lack of effort from the technical department too is quite obvious in the series. There’s nothing to drive home in terms of cinematography – from a few panoramic shots of Pondicherry to those flashy, cardboard-like sets to the static backdrops. The music sounds extremely repetitive. The dialogues are so flavourless and creepy too. The series is a collective failure by all means.

Highlights?

None

Drawbacks?

Amateurish performances
Terrible, silly story
Poor writing

Did I Enjoy It?

Not even to my worst enemy

Will You Recommend It?

No

Karoline Kamakshi Review by Srivathsan Nadadhur