Angry Young Men Review: Docuseries Is An Unabashed Celebration of Salim & Javed

“Kitne aadmi the?” Angry Young Men depicts the famous dialogue from Sholay early on. “Do aadmi the,” comes the response, as the Amazon Prime Video series cuts to a young Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, now aged 88 and 78 respectively. The title refers not merely to the seminal Angry Young Man they created, but also the writing duo themselves, who it treats with comparable heroism. 

Debut-directed by Namrata Rao and co-produced by Salman Khan Films, Excel Entertainment, and Tiger Baby, the series introduces the mythology of Salim-Javed, the seminal writing partners who, Dharmendra tells us, “brought a revolution in the writing of screenplays and dialogues” in the 1970s.

They “gatecrashed into the citadel of Bollywood,” Mahesh Bhatt adds, and “introduced the age of the writer.”  

Of 24 films they co-wrote, Zoya Akhtar shares, 22 were blockbusters: Seeta aur Geeta, Zanjeer, Deewar, Sholay, Chacha Bhatija, Trishul, Don, Kaala Patthar, Dostana, Kranti, Shakti…the list keeps going. The actors varied, from Amitabh Bachchan to Dharmendra to Jeetendra, Komal Nahta notes, but Salim-Javed were the “common factor.” “They were stars,” says film critic Anupama Chopra: “writer-stars.” 

Over three roughly 40-minute episodes, Angry Young Men chronicles the origin story, stupendous success, and finally the breakup of the duo, who, we’re told, were not just immensely talented but also brash, bratty, and brazen.

The docuseries excels as an unabashed celebration of these two men: their artistic brilliance, striking audacity, and towering legacy. 

It’s packed with testimonies from over 60 different talking heads, ranging from Salim-Javed themselves, to their families, film fraternity members, journalists, film scholars, and fans. The series nicely intercuts these interviews, splicing them with archival footage, old photos, and newspaper clips. Key scenes from their films also loom large; the slick introduction sequence further immerses the viewer in their mesmerising cinematic universe.

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“They were anti-establishment in their ethos,” says Karan Johar, explaining how these “angry” and “angsty,” men “created an angry, angsty, anti-establishment lead” who represented the widespread socio-political discontent at the time. In the Angry Young Man, they found the “perfect representation of dissent,” explains Varun Grover. This character was often named Vijay, who, Farah Khan says, “embodied both of them together.” At a time when writers’ names didn’t feature on posters or banners, for instance, Salim-Javed defiantly demanded credit.

The tone of Angry Young Men varies between poignant, rousing, and comedic, which is fitting for a decades-long saga like theirs. But at one level, the series tries to do too many things at once.

In three short episodes, it wants to unpack the mythology of Salim-Javed, explore their personal lives (including their marriages, divorces, and remarriages), examine their films’ sociopolitical, cinematic, and commercial relevance, delve into their own relationship with each other, and so much more. 

As a result, the series often chooses breadth over depth, leading to a lack of sharp insight in places.

The job of a great documentary is to narrativise, not just narrate, but Angry Young Men sometimes relies too much on the brilliance of its subjects, focusing so much on capturing their story comprehensively that it ends up lacking a central emotional or analytical throughline beyond nostalgia and reverence. 

Recent documentaries about Indian film industries have sacrificed nuance and criticality for access, such as Netflix’s The Romantics and Modern Masters. Angry Young Men admirably refuses to sanitise. But for writers known for their anti-heroes, Salim-Javed are never quite allowed to get messy enough as subjects. Narrative arcs like Akhtar’s divorce with Honey Irani, which he admits was 60-70% his fault, or Arbaaz Khan saying he yearned for more time with his father, go a long way in humanising the series’ legendary protagonists. 

The duo’s family members offer the most honest and heartfelt glimpses into their lives. Irani steals the show with her singular candour and one-liners. Like when she jokes that Akhtar definitely has a lot of Gabbar Singh in him, or states frankly that the pair’s arrogance “affected their judgement,” leading to their eventual downfall in the mid-1980s. If only their families received even more screen time.

Unfortunately, the overwhelmingly large number of interviewees crowd the series, appearing more tokenistic than valuable – especially the stars, who, let’s face it, are largely there to draw eyeballs rather than add narrative substance. 

Angry Young Men also offers only a glimmer of analysis of Salim-Javed’s famed screenplays themselves. Episode 2, for instance, looks at Sholay and Deewar, the latter of which, Akhtar confesses, they wrote in just 18 days. There’s plenty of nostalgia gold for Sholay fans, too, like Hema Malini remembering her dialogue delivery or Ramesh Sippy dishing out production anecdotes. The best part, though, is Akhtar analysing what makes his characters work, especially villains like Gabbar Singh. 

Just like kids are drawn to lions and tigers in a zoo, he explains, everyone is drawn to a “ruthless man who had no emotional or moral justification for his cruelty”, because people subconsciously admire his freedom to be cruel. You could listen to such gems of insight for hours, but we simply don’t get enough. As the face of their cultural cornerstone, Amitabh Bachchan’s presence in Angry Young Men, in particular, remains superficial and underwhelming.

Then there’s the question of their split, which the trailer teases, but the series tiptoes around. With flops like Imaan Dharam and Shaan, we’re told, the duo parted ways quite suddenly once their movies stopped doing as well. Khan poignantly recalls how his phone gradually stopped ringing, while Akhtar reflects that they perhaps didn’t realise the value of goodwill when they were basking in their glory. 

The series ultimately works best when it gradually peels back the layers of its titular protagonists, revealing their wounds and vulnerabilities as men who freely danced between confidence and arrogance.

At a larger level, it hammers home the importance of a movie’s writers, highlighting how much writers continue to be underpaid and systemically overlooked. With the Hindi film industry creatively, commercially, and politically floundering, Angry Young Men reminds us that good writing is a worthy aspiration, one that can leave an impact and legacy for decades.

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