Review: Kambakkht Ishq

It appears, a film can either have a super-star, or a story-line. Seldom both. You probably know where this one falls, says Mayank Shekhar.

Kambakkht Ishq
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor
Director: Sabir Khan
Rating: *

It appears, a film can either have a super-star, or a story-line. Seldom both. You probably know where this one falls.

Of course this movie has a story-line: A super-model (Kareena) is also a practicing med-school surgeon by day. She operates on a stunt-man (Akshay), and leaves behind her watch with a recurring alarm-bell inside his body. The alarm goes off — Mangalam Mangalam — from probably the patient’s fragile intestines, and he can’t fathom the source of that noise.

The supermodel-surgeon seduces the sleazoid stunt-man, for fear of being sued for negligence. No, this is for real.

I’d somewhat heard of this script given, I’m told, Nokia had approached the filmmakers to slip in a phone, instead of the watch, into the hero’s body. It seemed a better marketing move that this movie for sure.

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The film itself has nothing to do with its appealingly ridiculous script of course.

The central idea is Akshay Kumar alone: a playboy action-double. Hollywood stars appear minor actors in his presence. Busty blondes melt like butter when they set their dreamy eyes on his brown skin. Even when he faints, they want the head to balance over their silicone cleavage. He’s good in bed, they lustily coo to the camera. An orgy is his after-party. ‘When in Rome, he does the Romans’.

Denise Richards, 38, plants on him a nano-sec peck on the lip. She claims that innocent touch, in the Indian tabloids, to be the best kiss ever. The salutation is understandable.

He’s the man: the only reason a gigantic set gets destroyed on every scene here; cars randomly chase down streets; fancy yachts are hired for casual conversations; Sylvester Stallone is bothered with for a day or two; and a budget the size of an Indian small-town economy is blown up in smoke. Some deserve a recession. Aspirin rarely helps a concussion.

‘Zeroine’ Kareena Kapoor could endorse both. When not calling someone a dog, or herself a bitch (a fine vocabulary, given the rest of the pic), she arbitrarily sashays in to dance on some jarring track or the other. One of them is dedicated to what her family and fanzines call her at home. It goes, “Bebo mein bebo, Dil dene aai, Dil mera lelo.” There, another set is blown off yet again.