I don’t have a problem with low-IQ cinema, even that which encourages viewers to leave vital body parts at home. But even slapstick needs to be made well enough to stick. It needs to be entertaining enough for one to willingly suspend disbelief and hop along for the ride. The bad news, however, is that Bad Newz is bad news.
Body language to background score, dialogue delivery to drama, everything in this film is cranked up to obscenely loud levels. I don’t want to resort to stereotypes, but Bad Newz — it says so itself at every available opportunity — is so steeped in its abominable attempt to channel a particular community (the film could well have been called ‘The Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Lives of Bagga, Chaddha and Pannu’) that it dials down nuanced, effective storytelling and dials up everything else.
Even as the execution leaves a lot to be desired, it seems that the story of Bad Newz — the second film in producer Karan Johar’s ‘complicated pregnancy universe’ — isn’t quite original either. The Brazilian series Desperate Lies that dropped on Netflix recently, has a premise which seems to be a carbon copy of Bad Newz — that of a woman finding herself pregnant with twins fathered by two different men. The makers of Bad Newz may argue that their film has been in production for a while, but this is a chicken-and-egg situation where it is difficult to gauge who the winner is.
We do know who the loser is though — the viewer who walks into a screening of Bad Newz. First, like most Hindi films these days, there is very little in the film that you wouldn’t have watched in the trailer. The rest of it is an incoherent mess, with Bad Newz yo-yoing from a badly-made comedy to a badly-made melodrama. The laughs don’t come on easily and the rest of it will reduce you to tears. I am not sure if that is what the film aims for.
Directed by Anand Tiwari (who last helmed the sublime Bandish Bandits) and written by Ishita Moitra and Tarun Dudeja, Bad Newz seems to be in a frenzied hurry to throw everything at the screen and wait around to see what sticks. The film kicks off with star chef Saloni Bagga (Triptii Dimri) who has her eye set on one career achievement — becoming the first in India to be awarded a ‘Meraki’ star. That is this film’s version of a Michelin star, but Bad Newz decides to make it sound Japanese (or rather, Greek).
Saloni walks into a party, bumps into Punjabi munda — Vicky Kaushal’s Akhil Chaddha seems to be a close cousin of Ranveer Singh’s Rocky Randhawa in Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani — and a series of over-the-top meet-cutes (they go ‘aap’ to ‘tu’ in a space of two sentences) and a forgettable song later, they get married. They also get divorced promptly. The real problem (for the audience) arises when Saloni sleeps with her ex-husband and her new boss (Ammy Virk plays Gurbir Pannu) and gets pregnant. So, who’s the dad? Turns out both, with the writers of Bad Newz suddenly feeling intellectual enough to hurl the term ‘Heteropaternal Superfecundation’ at the viewer.
What could have been rich fodder for both comedy and drama, however, turns out to be anything but. Akhil and Gurbir, in order to prove who can be the superior father, indulge in a game of one-upmanship which is predictable and gets tiring after a while. Things get worse when the waterworks are turned on, with Bad Newz limping towards a convenient and contrived ending.
Good Newwz, the first film in this purported franchise which came out a few years ago, rode on a similarly outlandish premise, but stayed afloat because of the comedic chops of talents like Akshay Kumar and Diljit Dosanjh. Kareena Kapoor Khan and Kiara Advani enriched the strong ensemble. Bad Newz, in contrast, has lines that sound more like slogans than dialogues — Dharma Productions self-referencing its films doesn’t always work. Ammy Virk is reduced to a mousy presence while Triptii Dimri seems out of depth, her degeneration as an artiste from Bulbbul to Animal and now Bad Newz, being heartbreaking.
The only one who saves the day (somewhat) is Vicky Kaushal, whose presence ensures that you have your eyes on the screen even when the man is being made to do and say the most outrageous things. Vicky is the lifeline of Bad Newz and the only reason why you can give this film a try. If not, just buy a ticket for another film and walk into Bad Newz in the last two minutes to watch the smooth operator going Tauba tauba. The rest of Bad Newz? Well, tauba tauba!
