Bad Newz Review: It’s Vicky Kaushal vs Bollywood Nostalgia and Pop-Cultural Winks

Director: Anand Tiwari
Writers: Ishita Moitra, Tarun Dudeja
Cast: Triptii Dimri, Vicky Kaushal, Ammy Virk, Sheeba Chaddha, Neha Dhupia

Runtime: 142 minutes

Available in: Theatres

Moments after watching a modern Dharma Productions comedy, Rumi once said: “Out beyond ideas of self-referencing, retro nostalgia and meta Bollywood gags, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” Jokes aside (or not), it’s starting to get stale. Movies like Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016) and Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani (2023) got away with it because they were inherently self-reflexive stories; the idea was to subvert the tropes we grew up on. But Bad Newz takes the eggless cake in terms of name-dropping and pop-cultural winks. Half the screenplay is just that. Triptii Dimri’s character is called a “national crush”. Vicky Kaushal has “high josh,” and reacts to “Manmarziyaan ka Vicky Kaushal” and Katrina Kaif’s photograph. A love story escalating fast is described as: “He went from Yeh Ladka Hai Allah to Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi”. A wife is told that she’s lucky her husband’s violence stays outside, unlike a neighbour named ‘Kabir,’ who allegedly beats up his wife Preeti under the pretext of loving her. There are song snatches from Mohabbatein (2000), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Duplicate (1998) (“Mere Mehboob Mere Sanam” is a two-guys-one-girl track here: The woman is the chef; one man is slutty and the other is sanskari). 

Too Many References Spoil the Plot

The point being: This is the core language of Bad Newz. It never really has a chance to become its own film. The story exists because of other stories. In fact, the entire film is a flashback because Saloni is actually narrating her life story to Ananya Panday, the real-world Bollywood actress slated to play Saloni in a biopic. It uses heteropaternal superfecundation – a rare reproductive process where twins are born to one mother from different biological fathers – to stage a you-go-girl love triangle. A heartbroken Saloni Bagga ends up sleeping with her new boss Gurbir Pannu (Ammy Virk) and ex-husband Akhil Chadha (Vicky Kaushal) on the same night (“He was a starter and I was the main course?”). This is significant only because Saloni – an ambitious woman with sexual autonomy – is played by Dimri, a promising actress whose characters (Bulbbul, Qala, Animal) have often been victims of sexual abuse and the male gaze. I get the reel-real wink, and I like that there’s no slut-shaming or melodrama, but it’s almost as if Saloni’s socially suggestive pregnancy is the price a Dimri character pays for making her own choices. Even the wokeness wears off. 

The film unleashes one-liners and situational gags at breakneck pace, like a cinematic manifestation of the bus in Speed (1994) that might blow up if it goes below 50 miles per hour. The problem with being proudly movie-mad and social-media-aware is that even the good parts feel like a skit. The first hour, for instance, is very watchable because it unfolds as the answer to the question: What if Rocky and Rani had rushed into marriage? Akhil behaves like a Ranveer Singh stan: He’s charming, crude, shameless and very new to someone like Saloni, a designer chef who dreams of winning a Meraki star (the desi version of a Michelin star, which involves judges asking questions that prompt beauty-pageant-like answers). The honeymoon period ends when the career-minded Saloni realizes that Akhil is not only a momma’s boy, but also a needy West Delhi alpha who thinks nothing of barging into her restaurant and embarrassing her with gifts every day. He’s also a little regressive: “Girls with tattoos cannot be trusted”. 

After breaking up with him in a scene that strains to normalize divorce, she lands up cooking at a Mussoorie-based Gujarati restaurant (don’t ask) owned by Gurbir, a mature beta with a head on his shoulders. After suspecting that Akhil might have moved on, Saloni corners Gurbir one night the way Sonali Bendre cornered the meeker Shah Rukh Khan in Duplicate. It looks like a vegetarian game, ripe with physical comedy and visual punchlines. 

The Easy Charm of Vicky Kaushal 

At some point, this tone collapses into that of a live-action cartoon. The second half is a glorified Tom & Jerry episode, where Akhil and Gurbir keep one-upping each other like animated buffoons to win Saloni’s hand. Imagine an adult story trying to appeal to a five-year-old (Good Newwz, its spiritual prequel, was guilty of this too, but at least it had two W’s in its title). Ironically, while the two men duke it out to win full custody of ‘her’ twins, Saloni’s screen-time goes for a toss. If the intent is to prove that men have a way of making it all about themselves, this method-storytelling does not land. The film gets consumed by its own progressive pose. The preachy moments – like the doctor being asked to refer to the embryos as Baby Bagga(s) rather than Baby Chaddha and Baby Pannu – overcompensate for Saloni’s fate. 

Kaushal is so easy on the ears and eyes that he makes his surroundings – including the rest of the cast, film, popcorn, samosa – look inferior in comparison. Dimri and Virk have nowhere to hide in scenes that involve all three. Any other actor might have been accused of aping Ranveer Singh or Govinda’s energy, but Kaushal’s joy is original. His “Tauba Tauba” dance is all the rage right now, and for good reason. It’s also a neat marketing tool, forcing the audience to stay past the end credits of a film whose 140-odd minutes do less than the song. 

Which reminds me, I cannot end this review without mentioning the background score, the real third wheel of this story. Let’s just say that if Bad Newz were a person, it’d be the first to be mauled and swallowed by the sound-hating creatures of A Quiet Place. This score is a relentless assault of comic effects, the kind that musically spell out the action of a scene: “Come follow meeee” is the cue when one character stalks another. If I had walked out of the hall, it’d have been “Goooood-bye” with a pow-wow and whimper. Or if I took a sip of water, it’d be “H2O baby-yeahhh”. I don’t know why I’m so triggered by this – it’s common in Rohit Shetty comedies and even Dharma romcoms: Kal Ho Naa Ho’s Kantaben and Rocky Aur Rani’s Rani Chatterjee had their own intro themes. But the soundscape of Bad Newz just doesn’t know when to quit. It drove me nuts (“chakhna o makhna”).