If you watched Kabir Khan’s “New York” this summer, you won’t find much novelty in Rensil D’Silva’s “Kurbaan”. The storyline is pretty much the same, except for a few cosmetic differences.

There is an educated, suave man living a double life as a terrorist, his beautiful wife who doesn’t know about his identity and the “third man” who tries to help the family.

However, D’Silva still manages to draw you into his story, thanks to some taut moments, a fast-paced first half, and some slick packaging.

Kareena Kapoor plays Avantika, a New York professor who falls in love and gets married to colleague Ehsaan Khan (Saif Ali Khan).

They buy a house in an Indian neighbourhood and on their first night there, are introduced to their neighbours, a group of conservative Muslims — who seem to be hiding something.

Avantika soon realises she has to make a choice between her marriage and what is right.

She meets Riyaz Masood (Viveik Oberoi), a reporter with a local channel who helps her expose the truth, but they both find they are pawns in a larger game.
The film maintains a tight pace in the first half but slackens in the second, when all the surprises in the story seem to die out.

Also, D’Silva hardly dwells on the relationship between Ehsaan and Avantika, when that could have been the main draw of the film.

The dialogue is unimaginative in places, and so are the character sketches. Saif’s character comes across as half-baked and we never see why he made the transition from an ordinary man into a terrorist.

There are good points however — the few confrontation scenes between Ehsaan and Avantika are taut and the chemistry is crackling. Also, even though the director does oversimplify the themes of Islamic fundamentalism and jihad, the film does make some pertinent points which hit home.

Of the performances, Saif Ali Khan is stranded with a badly written role that doesn’t allow him to explore the character much. Kareena Kapoor does well, playing the part of the trapped wife to perfection. Viveik Oberoi’s character demanded that he be understated, instead the actor goes for over-the-top acting, thus ruining the effect.

“Kurbaan” is a good one-time-watch.

The other day a colleague asked me why I never seemed to like any film these days. I thought about it and wondered the same myself. Don’t they make good films any more?

Two hours after watching Prem Soni’s “Main Aur Mrs Khanna”, you realise the answer to that question is a resounding NO.

I don’t know whether this is a particularly bad year for Bollywood or whether the industry is just going through a phase but this is certainly not the kind of film you expect as a big Diwali release.

Kareena Kapoor plays Raina Khanna, a troubled wife whose husband Sameer (Salman Khan) is in the middle of a bad spell in his career.

This leads to trouble in the marriage because as he puts it, “financial stability is at the heart of every happy marriage.” Really? Whatever happened to respect, trust and love?

Sameer decides to move cities, from Melbourne to Singapore, and Raina reluctantly agrees. At the airport, Sameer tells her she isn’t coming with him to Singapore. The reasons for this move aren’t elaborated — he merely tells her he wants to save their marriage.

Raina decides to stay on in Melbourne and gets a job at the airport duty-free shop. Bappi Lahiri puts in an appearance as the shop owner and the less said about his role, the better.

She also meets Aakash (Sohail Khan) a goofy waiter at the airport café who lends a shoulder for her to cry on.

I wish the director had concentrated a little more on the problems between Sameer and Raina and their conflicts. Instead we get a mindless romance that goes nowhere. There are so many holes in the script that Bappi Lahiri could have passed through them.

For instance how can Raina, a salesgirl at a shop, afford a mansion and wear designer clothes? Many things are left unexplained and the direction is extremely haphazard.

Preity Zinta is wasted in a mindless cameo that makes you wonder what made her accept it. None of the performances make the cut and even Kareena Kapoor and Salman Khan don’t make an impact. Avoid this film at all costs.

When I think of a Bollywood media interview, what pops into my mind are — long waits, filthy sets, stars with a lot more attitude than they should have and clichéd answers I could have predicted long before I met them…

But Saif Ali Khan proved me wrong on all counts. He turned out to be a thorough professional.

Khan was very ‘corporate’ in his demeanour, taking us in for the interview as soon as we got there, giving us candid answers about his experiences as a first-time producer with “Love Aaj Kal”, being open about his relationship with Kareena Kapoor and making no bones about us appearing unannounced with a camera.

Perhaps Khan’s most interesting response was when we asked him about working with other production houses after he has worked on his own.

Khan compared it to a ‘dinner party’.

Working in your own production is like hosting a dinner, he said, while working in other films is like being a guest at somebody else’s party where you pick up tips (or not) for your next do…

All of these dinner party ‘hosts’ and their ‘guests’ have their idiosyncrasies when dealing with the press. But the deciding factor has to be their standing on the popularity charts.

Case in point- the otherwise reticent and media-unfriendly Saif Ali Khan. He had a lot to say during the interview and was surprisingly comfortable talking to us — I call this the success effect.

Do you think success makes celebrities more media-savvy?

A feeling of numbness and disbelief is not uncommon after a movie-watching experience. Sometimes you are awed by the sheer vision of the director or the depth of a particular performance. Sometimes, it is a thought expressed, or an expression that stays with you.

But after watching “Kambakkht Ishq”, I was left numb at the thought someone could make such a bad film.

Yes, there is no other word for it. This extremely expensive film, with cameos by Hollywood stars and flashy fight sequences, isn’t quite the entertainer it promised to be.

Akshay Kumar is Viraj Shergill, a stuntman in Hollywood who likes to play the field. Aftab Shivdasani plays his younger brother, Lucky, who falls in love and gets married to Kamini (Amrita Arora).

Kareena Kapoor plays Simrita Rai, Kamini’s best friend and a part-time model and medical student who has a militant hatred of men, believing that they want “only one thing.”

Of course, in the tradition of Bollywood love stories, Viraj and Simrita hate each other at first sight and indulge in some mindless bickering in the first half.

There are also mindless song sequences, some corny double meaning innuendos, and jokes which lack punch and are often offensive — especially to women.

Then, to make matters worse, Viraj meets with an accident on the sets and ruptures his intestines. Guess who gets to operate on him? Yes, you guessed right.

So when Simrita operates on our hero, she mistakenly leaves behind a watch in his body.

Viraj walks out of the hospital with a watch lodged near his intestines and our heroine is left wondering how she can get him back on the operating table and get rid of the offensive object without being sued.

This is the problem the film focuses on in the second half of the film.
Hollywood actors Sylvester Stallone puts in an appearance as himself in two scenes as does Bond girl Denise Richards.

Richards even agrees to marry Viraj, before she is unceremoniously dumped for Kareena in the climax. And don’t miss the scene in which all of Hollywood stands up for “India’s national anthem” in the Kodak theatre. It’s hilarious, especially because it isn’t meant to be.

Of the performances, Jaaved Jaffrey and Boman Irani play some of the most mindless roles in film history. Kirron Kher, (who has perfected the loud, Punjabi mother act by now), hams it up as Kareena’s aunt and Aftab Shivdasani and Amrita Arora look like they would rather be home asleep in bed than on the sets of this film.

Kareena Kapoor is stuck with what is barely a role, and though she tries hard to pull it off, you feel no sympathy for her character. But it is Akshay Kumar who is the real disappointment.

Here is an actor who has managed to pull off some of the most badly written roles of recent times — whether “Welcome” or a “Singh is Kinng” — he manages to look good in a bad film.

In “Kambakkht Ishq”, his magic fails and his famed penchant for humour is nowhere to be seen.

This is a movie that is so bad, you have to see it to believe it. So go buy tickets.