When Shawar Ali gets under the shower in his underwear, you know this film about sex and physical abuse is in serious trouble.

Director Rajesh Singh wants to pitch the dark tale at both the sleaze seekers and women audiences who would want to sympathise with an abused wife.

But sorry...you can't have it all. Through Diana Hayden's over-dubbed, black-and-blue, beaten and bruised performance as a wife you see the director sailing in two boats at the same time.

No film can do that without tripping over its nose. "Ab...Bas!" does just that, and none too soon. Borrowed generously from an awful Jennifer Lopez flick called "Enough", "Ab...Bas!" mixes hot smooches and cold showers with mythological images of the wife as the avenging Chandi and Kali Mata. Porn and religion are a dangerous mix, specially when put in the wrong hands.

By the time Diana annihilates her hideous husband, Shawar Ali, it isn't just the audience that's out of breath.

"Ab...Bas!" is the kind of phoney film about a social conscience that pricks the bubble of its whitewashed intentions. There are item songs scattered all over, with scantily clad babes cavorting like fish out of water to Daboo Malik's indeterminate melodies.

The pout soon develops a leak. And you are left with a film that has no reason to be doing what it is.

The social concern (wife-battering) is swamped in sleaze. The end game where Diana dons Zeenat Aman's "Don" wig and beats the shit out of her despicable husband is a part of the new filmy trend where filmy sirens take on their male counterparts one-on-one. Isha Koppiker did it to Ashish Chowdhary in "Girlfriend". Now Diana gives Shawar blows that leave him gasping for breath.

To her credit, Diana performs better than her colleagues. The rest of the cast is purely cupboard material. Wonder why they ever came out!