Aap Ki Khatir (For Your Sake) is a mediocre ripoff of a mediocre ripoff. It’s a Bollylift of The Wedding Date, a Debra Messing vehicle which was a mashup of My Best Friend’s Wedding, Pretty Woman and The Bodyguard. Its cadences have that special inertness which bespeaks bad direction, slack editing and an improvised script. It’s a strangely anachronistic throwback to the cheesy ’80s: who still shoots entire movies in soft focus with xylophone in the score?

Priyanka Chopra should throw in the tolia, this acting business has her lovely model visage defeated. She lards her dubs with trills and giggles, layering ineptness with ditz. Akshaye Khanna really should’ve learned to dance by now. Dino Morea’s as charming as usual, Sunil Shetty as wooden, Amisha Patel as saccharine, Lilette Dubey as gravel-throated milfy, Anupam Kher as jocular.

Between Dubey, Kher, his real-life wife Kirron, and Amitabh Bachchan, you’d think there were no other parents in the Bollyverse. It’s that need for familiar faces which arises out of economic insecurity. Sweep away the license raj, and the cinema will improve.

‘Tu Hai Kamaal’

The sole bright spot is ‘Tu Hai Kamaal (You’re Something Else),’ a hypnotic dance track with full-throated booty bass. It’s tacky on screen (black lights and tarty butterfly blouses), but your woofers will love it. Its contrived-yet-cute choreography reminds me of the foam party scene in the equally leaden Boys and Girls (Claire Forlani, Freddy Prinze Jr.)

Watch the theatrical trailer. Or don’t. You’re not missing much.