The film stars Vicky Kaushal, Triptii Dimri, Ammy Virk. It needed to be tighter, with more gags and a smoother shift to the dramatic portions.
Vicky Kaushal has played romantic roles earlier, most notably in Manmarziyan. But from the time he burst into public consciousness with Masaan, his career as a leading man has been dominated by drama – or put differently, even his leading men have come off largely like elevated character actors, in films like Uri, Sardar Udham, Sam Bahadur… The wonderful surprise of Bad Newz is that Vicky finally gets to be the traditional, arms-outstretched Hindi cinema hero, along the lines of Shah Rukh Khan of the 1990s/2000s and embodied most recently by Ranveer Singh in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Vicky plays Akhil, a mama’s boy who falls for a chef named Saloni (Triptii Dimri). Taking his leave after flirting with her, he says, “Nazron se jaa raha hoon… Dil aur dimaag se nahin jaane wala.” This is peak charm, and Vicky plays it at just the right pitch. The sentiment is real but the line is knowingly corny, and we see why Saloni falls hard for him.
The film, directed by Anand Tiwari, is essentially a Vicky Kaushal showcase. Watch Vicky do wordplay with a very funny line that rhymes machchar and mamta. Watch Vicky do glorious slapstick inside a mobile phone store. Watch Vicky do solid sentiment when he tears up and tells Saloni that she gave up too easily on their relationship. Watch Vicky do a different kind of sentimental scene – with less self-pity, more self-confidence – in a big bit towards the end. And last but not least, watch Vicky burn up the screen with that super-catchy hook step for the super-catchy ‘Tauba tauba’ number. One of the great (and increasingly diminishing) pleasures of the movies is getting to watch a “star performance”, and Vicky Kaushal puts us right in that zone. But he is so good that he becomes the plus and the minus of Bad Newz. The plus is Vicky Kaushal. The minus is that nothing else measures up to his efforts.
The story is about Saloni and Akhil and a pregnancy complication brought in when a sort-of love triangle is formed, with the arrival of Gurbir (Ammy Virk). If you are just after an easy watch, Bad Newz – I guess – fits the bill. I am no longer a fan of the constant referencing to the Karan Johar/Aditya Chopra back catalogue, but the nod to ‘Mere mehboob mere sanam’ from Duplicate works very well. And the soundtrack tells you that this is not a film you want to take seriously: for instance, when there is talk of someone having chicken for breakfast, we hear a rooster crowing in the background. But if you are going for a broad farce, the film needs tightness. It needs to explode with gags. The rivalry between Akhil and Gurbir is compared to Tom and Jerry, but Gurbir is such an underwritten character that Ammy Virk is unable to do anything with it. Gurbir is meant to be the calm and mature one, as opposed to the explosively impulsive and emotional Akhil – but he just comes across as bland.
The screenplay (Ishita Moitra, Tarun Dudeja) wastes a lot of time in fluff like a framing device involving Ananya Panday. I wished the running gag involving the phone calls from Akhil’s mother had found its way into the second half, too. I wished the private detective character had been given something more to do. I wished the shift to drama in the second half had been smoother. These emotional scenes with the extended families are written in very broad strokes, and do not do justice to the set-up. It doesn’t help that none of the supporting characters are memorable. This mix of comedy and drama is always a tricky thing, and maybe we wouldn’t have felt the flaws if the pacing and staging had been better. Many of the scenes in the post-interval portions are as flat as the writing.
The nice thing about Bad Newz is that the woman is in charge. Saloni makes a decision about Akhil. Saloni makes a decision about Gurbir. Subsequently, Saloni makes the decision about her pregnancy. Saloni is the only character who has a goal, which is to get the equivalent of a Michelin star. But the character is all surface and no inner core. I would have loved to know, for instance, what a career-driven woman who does not want a baby feels when she realises she is pregnant. Also, I wished Triptii had been looser, with more sass and uninhibitedness. She plays many of her scenes as though she is playing drama. Anyway, the feel-good nature of the film helps. Bad Newz is harmless entertainment, even if you wish that it came with a fast-forward button to get through the draggy bits.
