Kambakkht Ishq - Movie Review

Published: July 3, 2009

By JENNIFER HOPFINGER

Starring Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Aftab Shivdasani, Amrita Arora

While images of L.A. abound—and Sylvester Stallone and Denise Richards make (underwhelming) appearances playing themselves—the Hollywood setting has little relevance in this mildly amusing romantic comedy. Akshay Kumar plays Viraj, a movie stuntman, and Kareena Kapoor plays Simrita, a med student who moonlights as a model. He’s a chauvinist pig and she’s a man-hating bitch, but they have one thing in common: neither of them believes in love.

 

Simrita and Viraj try to stop the wedding of her best friend Kamini (Amrita Arora) to his brother Lucky (Aftab Shivdasani), and when that fails, they try to break up their marriage. Despite their disregard for the happiness of their loved ones, the main characters show enough vulnerability to make them sufficiently sympathetic, and their fighting is so rife with sexual tension that it doesn’t become tiresome. They hate each other, but coincidences keep bringing them together—they’re both sent to Venice to work on the same job, and later, he ends up on her operating table.

 

Simrita’s aunt, Dolly (Kirron Kher), hopes her niece will change her mind about marriage, and she gives her a heart-shaped watch that chimes Hindu chants every hour. Simrita operates on Viraj and unknowingly loses the watch inside him and closes him up. When she realizes what she’s done, she’s desperate to lure him back to the hospital to re-operate—without him discovering her error—while he’s hell-bent on getting her into bed because he can’t resist the challenge. In the meantime, he thinks he’s going crazy because he keeps hearing Hindu chants and can’t figure out why.

 

Some of the jokes are borderline offensive and some are just plain juvenile, but enough are acceptably humorous. It’s obvious the whole time where these two are headed—she brings the tough guy to his knees, he makes the ice queen melt—but it’s still entertaining to watch them get there.

Kambakkht Ishq is rated Worth Watching.

Community - News - Reviews - Commentary - About