Director: Sabbir Khan

‘Kambakkht Ishq’ aims at those who think from the groin, and hits the target unerringly: the hero and heroine of this heavily-publicised enterprise are eloquence personified--- he is a dog, she is a bitch. And like best of the breed, they circle, ears pricked, tails raised, throats growling, noses sniffing, all ends up, down, and the middle.

For the record, he’s Viraj Sheirgill (Akshay), ace stuntman in Hollywood, who believes women are good for only “two things”.

She is Simrita Rai ( Kareena), an ultra-swish model, who is convinced men want only one thing. Uh oh, actually, no, she is a surgeon, who bares her pretties only to pay her way through med school. And the film is basically to do with two of them jousting to add up the numbers: will Akshay-the-sexist-so-and-so’s two match up to all-men-are-hateful Kareena’s one?

While they are at it, we are regaled with jokes to do with all parts of the human anatomy: Akshay’s butt is the butt of a long examination by a fat Black woman from which he emerges limply. Viagra is mixed in protein shakes. Fleshy parts above and below the midriff are shaken. And everything is stirred every once in a while with wiggly waists and slathery navels, as Akshay and Kareena do the doodah in Hollywood – him in some jaw-dropping stunts, and her in seriously clingy sheaths and gravity-defying Jimmy Choos.

In all this, there’s the vaunted Hollywood brigade consisting of a pouchy-eyed Sylvester who’s made to fight off thugs, Bollywood-style, and hand out a trophy to our home-grown stuntman. Denise fills out her bikini way better than the anorexic Kareena (please can we have the old one back?). And Brandon’s gone in a blink. The best part about this expensively-mounted film—it goes by at a clip, except towards the end when it gets all emotional, and starts inching towards the altar (no ‘mandap’, this is Hollywood, remember?). But they can’t leave the guy and the gal all illegal and unhitched: this is Bollywood, too.

Perfect for the undemanding-what’s-new-at-the-‘plexes crowd. And the testosterone-fuelled who think canines having at each other is a barrel of fun.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com