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The good news: the first half, silly and sparkly, is altogether fun. The bad newz: the second half, taken over by sighs and moans, is a mood kill. Overall, mixed bag, as it flouts Rom Com Rule 101: never let the laughs dry.
It’s hard to think of anyone other than Ranveer Singh as the quintessential Wast Dalhi boy, bread pakode ki kasam, which he colonised in Band Baaja Baraat and Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani. In Anand Tiwari’s Bad Newz, rajma gets pride of place, and quite rightly, because as a character says, ‘Punjabiyon ke liye rajma khana nahin, emotion hai’. Spot on.
Now Ranveer Singh has serious competition in Vicky Kaushal as Akhil Chadha, ‘sabton vadda’, the litany coming on every time he comes on screen. He’s done a variation of it in Manmarziyaan, the film coming up dutifully for reference, but here he kills it: Akhil has a bad case of phonomania (cannot be parted from his ‘saal’ even for a second) coupled with mummymania (each and every call by Mummyji, played by the steely-soft Sheeba Chadha, has to be promptly answered, whether it is ‘first night’ or honeymoon), his lady-love Saloni Bagga (Triptii Dimri) coming a distinct third.
Bad Newz comes five years after Good Newwz, which shook up Bollywood’s graven-in-stone notions about parentage and legacy woven around couples who cannot conceive and IVF pregnancies and mix-up in sperm samples, with Kareena Kapoor Khan speaking up for the discomfort of lactating new mothers with a jaw-dropping frankness. It was a jaw-dropping first for Bollywood mired in its relentless veneration of ‘maateys’ who are meant to suffer silently for their beloved boy-childs, never letting them be men, stuffing their face with ‘apne haath ka halwa’ at every given chance.
Here it is a matter of one-would-be-mom-two-dads-twin-embryos (apparently there is a real condition called superfecundation, and it is not just a figment of filmi imagination). Yes, it is possible, and though the film isn’t exactly squeamish about Saloni taking the lead in the act which leads to the buns in her oven, she is given an excuse, it is got through with super-fast. Never let it be said that a ‘good’ Bollywood heroine, even in this day and age, can admit to pure lust.
So there we are: Akhil the Biggest vs Gurbir Pannu (Ammy Virk) locked in a Who Will Be The Real Dad face-off, with Saloni’s own ambitions– she is a slap-up chef who wants to acquire India’s first Meraki star– having to take a backseat. We know the winner way before the winning tape, of course.
If Bad Newz had stuck to its comedic guns, without resorting to the weepy saccharine bits which take over in the second half, it would have been gold. Kaushal and Dimri have real spark– he’s done some funny stuff before, but she has been stuck in serious roles in her past few films, ranging from living in psycho-bubbles to being asked to lick the hero’s shoes. Here, she is vital and alive and lovely, and holds her own. Virk is a clear third wheel despite his screen time, and comes off much more subdued.
Also in the mix, an aunt (Neha Dhupia) whose only job is to support the leading lady, a doctor (Faisal Rashid) who can’t believe he is witnessing this medical rarest-of-rare cases, and a real-life actor (Ananya Panday) playing herself, but they are mostly window-dressing.
What can Virk, or anyone else do, with the script being so enamoured with Sabton Vadda Akhil: I mean, how can you even dream of a Bollywood rom com in which the hero is not given a chance to show that he is all grown up, look ma? He gets his growth arc and learns his lesson; everyone else deals with it. I’m not complaining, though, because Kaushal is a delight from beginning to end, and ufff, tauba, those moves burning up the dance floor? Maar daala..
Bad Newz movie cast: Vicky Kaushal, Triptii Dimri, Ammy Virk, Sheeba Chadha, Neha Dhupia
Bad Newz movie director: Anand Tiwari
Bad Newz movie rating: 2.5 stars
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