What do you get when you have talented actors, storytellers who gave us the likes of Bandish Bandits and Love Per Square Foot, a globally trending song, backing by Dharma Productions, a refreshing and interesting concept of heteropaternal superfecundation in a dramedy?
You get a lousy film like Bad Newz.
Typically, I enjoy films that don’t waste too much time setting a scene and kicks off the story right away. If done right, it allows the audience to effortlessly connect with story and immerse themselves into the world.
However, Bad Newz gets it terribly wrong from the opening scene itself, all the way up to the intermission (and beyond) where every frame is catastrophe, stitched together haphazardly.
Let me paint you a picture –
Saloni Bagga (Tripti Dimri), a 30-something year old girl attends a wedding with her mom and aunt. They speedily talk about finding her a suitable match for marriage (as one does at weddings). Suddenly Akhil Chadha (Vicky Kaushal) makes a “hero” entry, asking them for a safety-pin. Wind blows. Saloni is smitten. Akhil starts singing and dancing. Saloni joins him. Song ends. They flirt (in lame one-liner pick-up lines). They start dating. They get married.
*Phew*.
All of that and more happens in less than 30 minutes and it’s a lot to take. Especially when none of it makes sense, and every character is a textbook caricature. It’s embarrassing.
You don’t feel for any character. You don’t empathise with anyone or any situation. It’s overacting pro-max. And no, there’s no chemistry.
I think the makers realised the lowbrow product in the edit (don’t even get me started on the bad edit job) and decided to include loud and obnoxious background music to every frame to add some desired effect.
However, I fail to understand why mainstream filmmakers still use cringy audio tropes such as the loud “PUNJABI” when showing a sikh man, or “SHARABI” when showing alcohol. It goes from bad to worse at every minute.
To make matters worse, it awkwardly uses Bollywood nostalgia and meta references for gags, which is basically random sequences clubbed for over a run time of over 2 hours.
‘Bad Newz’ is the worst film of 2024. The best part of the film is the end. You guessed it – Tauba Tauba in the end credits.
PS – If anyone spots Gajraj Rao in the film – please tell me.
