Review: Stay away from 'Kambakkht Ishq'... it’s an assault on your senses

Kambakkht Ishq (U/A)
Directionless
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor and other hams
Rating: You must be kidding!

Kambakkht Ishq, say news reports, will take a great opening. The marketing blitzkrieg over the past few weeks, a star-studded cast (we're talking Hollywood here) and the fact that it’s the first big-budget Hindi film after a long time, will ensure it.

So, people will swarm the theatres in the first few days — the producer, to maximise profits, would release the film in every theatre he could get his hands on — and by the time people realise that they’ve been conned, it’ll be too late.

The producer will have recovered his money, the distributors will scrape through and a small, paltry percentage of people will enjoy the film. In my right mind, I feel no one could enjoy Kambakkht Ishq. But just as some people thought fit to make it, I guess there would be those who might just enjoy it, too.

Kambakkht Ishq is Bollywood at its worst. Akshay Kumar, to a large extent, is to be blamed. Over the past few years, Akshay has been part of films of the "leave-your-brains-at-home" sort. Even before Kambakkht Ishq’s release, Akshay gave interviews about how the film was "illogical". Nothing wrong with that — we are all willing to let go of logic if we are entertained in the bargain.

But too many times now, Akshay has made us sit through torturous films that have no semblance of a story, have a shoddy script and Akshay-antics to make up for it. He’s got away with it (Bhaagam Bhaag, Phir Hera Pheri, Garam Masala and Singh Is Kinng), but lately, audiences have smartened up.

So, Tashan tanked in spite of the perfect set-up, Chandni Chowk To China sank, and well, Tasveer 8x10, Akshay’s attempt at "realistic" cinema, was just another example of his poor script sense.

But Kambakkht Ishq is a class apart. If making a bad film would have a course dedicated to it, Kambakkht Ishq would make for ideal textbook reading. It would be a great joy to discuss the little inanities of the script, how childish and idiotic the story was, how characters with an IQ less than that of a preschool kid pranced around, how a woman is referred to as a ***** and a man as a "dog" again and again and again. It's supposed to be humourous. All it does is make you grimace.

The film is also an all-time low for the actors (clearly Stallone’s worst). Denise Richards may have either not read the script or have been given a different one. There’s no other reason why an actor would want to be in a frame and be insulted in another language, yet preen without a clue of what the other characters are saying. It’s among the funnier moments in the film.

But talking or thinking about Kambakkht Ishq would be giving too much importance to something that needs to be forgotten quickly.

Sadly, the media jamboree won’t let you do that for a while.