While the lead actors give it their best, Anand Tiwari's film lacks the intent or the originality to entertain
“When a girl easily prone to fall in love runs into not one but two suitably lovable boys, the result should be Bad Newz after all.” Anand Tiwari’s latest directorial takes this overly familiar Bollywood premise of a triangular romance and merrily concocts it with a new-age idiom of love, lust and caution that’s further underscored with humour, music and naach-gaana — all of it, in equal measure, being befittingly loud and celebratory. It hat-tips to countless old and new Hindi films while simultaneously proving its self-aware nature through a strong infusion of social media trends and kitschiness, trying profusely to package an old wine in a snazzy new Instagrammable package.
The result is a blitzkrieg of gags and jollies that were first teased to us in the trailer and then by the Tauba Tauba mayhem. Both Triptii Dimrii and Vicky Kaushal are the IT girl and boy of Bollywood today and the presence of a bright talent like Ammy Virk in the mix meant that there was something truly special here. But in the attempt to run riot and entertain our pants off, Anand Tiwari and Co. end up going on overdrive and almost completely forgetting to give us a story that’s worth all the hype. Bad Newz, unfortunately, is one of those films whose trailer and other promotional material carry more muscle than the whole film itself, and that is because it is simply a classic case of style overshadowing substance.
Trouble in Paradise
Saloni Bagga (Triptii Dimrii), a young and ambitious chef, has her arm twisted by her Dilli-Punjabi mom to find a boy to marry but she, in turn, wants to earn the coveted Meraki star, which no other Indian chef has managed to. Enter Vicky Kaushal’s Akhil Chadha (quite literally), the quintessential Dilli-Punjabi ladka who dances and locks eyes with her at a wedding and soon enough, the wedding shehnai plays, the first-night hijinks are completed and a European honeymoon begins. Anand Tiwari and his two writers Ishita Moitra and Tarun Dudeja are very mindful of what they do here — they intentionally create an extra-sprightly, colourful Bollywood romance up till a point and then spring a pleasant surprise: Akhil Chadha is a mumma’s boy who doesn’t care enough to recognise Saloni’s pining dream to win that star.
Trouble in paradise, for sure, and enter the second Punjabi Munda right on cue — the very sophisticated, anti-archetype Gurbir Pannu (Ammy Virk). Gurbir is also the antithesis of Akhil in that he is shy, measured and chivalrous and Saloni is infatuated again, not knowing that she is about to tangle everyone — herself included — in a big Heteropaternal Superfecundation (imagine Akhil Chadha’s misery in pronouncing this) mess; in other words, as we all learnt in the trailer, Saloni is pregnant with both men’s children simultaneously. “Fascinating,” exclaims her doctor (played by the often under-utilised Faisal Rashid) but the film is yet to live up to the billing.
Vicky Kaushal and Triptii Dimri come to the rescue
But credit where it’s due, the first half of Bad Newz has its charm that largely comes from Vicky Kaushal’s abandon. The actor embraces the energy of his character wholeheartedly and is well supported by Triptii Dimri who, although undone by weak writing, essays her rehashed part with a good amount of ease and restraint. You can tell why they would fall for one another and then later have differences over things like careers and dreams. Akhil and Saloni might belong to the same demographic, they might sound the same at most times and also might lead the same lifestyle, but Vicky Kaushal and Triptii Dimrii do a fine job in making two different individuals out of them. And for a script that has its heart already submitted to these two characters, Ammy Virk’s Gurbir feels like the third wheel throughout because we never get to know the guy. Well, the film, in all fairness, doesn’t seem much interested in him in the first place and the Punjabi actor-singer certainly needed a better launchpad for his Hindi cinema chapter.
Part of that problem occurs in how Bad Newz's screenplay is designed, which further highlights how mainstream movies are being made of late. You can almost imagine the makers of the film jumping for joy over cracking the premise: a good-looking girl falls in love with two good-looking boys and is made to choose between them, except that a rare medical occurrence flips the switch. They will have to audition to win her heart now, while the whole proceeding underlines (as an afterthought) how patriarchal society is even today. It's almost as though the first pitch of the film says: “We could entertain the audience while engaging them and now imagine a trailer and other frills that promises all this along with glamour, laughter and, of course, a super hot lead pair”. The ostentation is in place, now let’s just get a semblance of a story to finish this off.
A wasted opportunity
As a result, the hospital scene — in which the doctor breaks the news to Triptii Dimri and Neha Dhupia — becomes the fulcrum of the story. While the events leading up to the moment have some significance, it is apparent all along that the film wants to get to that point of comical conflict in a bit of a hurry. Once there, it starts to run out of ideas and aside from those few gags we caught in the trailer, a majority of the runtime is then filled with one silly contrivance after another. Saloni wishes to test the two out to see who is the better-fitting father but we do not really get to see the two men being tested at any point. What they mostly do instead is pull TikTok-like pranks on one another that are mildly amusing at best, and I won't be the only one complaining about the outlandish sound effects used to accompany these scenes.
As it then nears the ending, Bad Newz only grows more template-ish in that elders (even an actor like Sheeba Chaddha is helpless here) get involved, words like izzat (honour) parampara (tradition) and khandaan (family) crop up and Saloni’s journey to finally find her deserving autonomy dwindles with each beat. What should have been communicated through nuance is finally spelt out to us through tall monologues and teary eyes and the battle that we were promised between Vicky Kaushal and Ammy Virk is ultimately given a flaccid truce. The resolution to the biblical problem growing in Saloni’s womb is extremely convenient but it had all the chance to be a lot more fun and contemplative — maybe this film is a testament to how easy it is to capture our collective attention today.
