Kambakkht Ishq is a remake of the 2002 Tamil comedy film Pammal K. Sambandam. The movie is projected as the battle of sexes. Viraj Shergil (Akshay Kumar) works as a stunt man in Hollywood movies for Hollywood stars like Sylvester Stallone and Brandon Routh. Words like “marriage” and “commitment” are taboo to him. He believes that women are just good for two things- making love and making love. Simrita Rai (Kareena Kapoor) is an aspiring surgeon who works part time as a model to pay her med-school fees. Simrita Rai believes that men only want one thing and are useless creatures. She does not believe in love and is a hardcore feminist.
Lucky (Aftab Shivdasani), Viraj’s younger brother is deeply in Love with Kamini (Amrita Arora) – a lingerie model and a friend of Simrita. Lucky is an emotional guy who believes in commitment and one love unlike his brother. Similarly, Kamini dreams of marriage and children unlike Simrita who does not believe in Marriage. The two diagonally opposite Viraj and Simrita are destined to meet at Lucky and Kamini’s wedding. A wedding that both Viraj and Simrita are violently opposed to and desperate to stop. The battle line is drawn during the wedding of Kamini and Lucky.
From then on Viraj and Simriti keep bumping into each other and each time they meet sparks fly and these sparks make you laugh. After being challenged by Lucky that he cant bed Simrita, Viraj is hell bent on bedding the only girl- simrita who is not smitten by his charm and Simrita tries to woo Viraj in order to save her professional career by performing a repeat surgery – she had mistakenly left her watch in Viraj’s tummy while performing the first surgery on Viraj, who was, then, injured in a stunt accident. Simrita in order to salvage her career goes to an extent where she is willing to sleep with Viraj, but Viraj who has fallen in Love with Simrita doesn’t even touch her (of course Simrita doesn’t know this). Viraj proposes to Simrita, where she gets the chance and she injects Viraj with a sedative, performs surgery on him and takes out the watch. When simrita refuses Viraj’s proposal, Viraj proposes Denise Richards who had always wanted to marry Viraj and to have kids with golden hair. Simrita meanwhile realizes her mistake and stops Viraj from marrying Denise Richards.
The story is the usual comic pot-boiler. However, certain moments would rip you apart. Especially the wedding scenes of Aftab and Amrita Arora. Also, the scene of Akshay’s first operation by Kareena is a laugh-riot. Akshay is particularly brilliant in that scene. The movie has many worthy moments.
Akshay Kumar excels himself as a male chauvinist – Viraj shergil, and gives a splendid performance. In fact, Akshay Kumar’s comic timimg has been honed to fine art. Aftab, Vindoo, Boman Irani also chip in with good performances. The music of the movie is good. Scored by Anu Malik, he brings all his experience into the movie. The on-screen chemistry between Akshay and Kareena is very good and it shows. The cinematography is excellent and the canvas is set vividly for every scene.
However, Kambakkth Ishq suffers from the usual bollywood syndromes. The story is nothing special and had many elements that could have been done away with – especially Javed Jaffery’s sub-plot. The comedy movie turns very dramatic and emotional towards the climax. Most importantly, Kareena continues to over-act and this does not do the movie any good. The other thing that could have been improved is how the Hollywood stars have been utilized. They could have played a much more substantial role than the cameos they did.
Despite all the negatives and the criticism by the media, this movie succeeds in doing what it is expected to do, i.e. entertain. Many of the Indian reviewers have been biased – where they have praised slap stick Hollywood comedies but not an Indian slapstick comedy. Take my words, if you are just looking for entertainment, this is mad cap you must watch. Highly entertaining except few minutes during the Climax where the movie takes an emotional turn.
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