‘Bad Newz’ Review: Vicky Kaushal Shines in a Film Hidden Under a Comedy Routine

One of my favourite comedy sets is Hannah Gadsby’s Douglas – it’s a glorious example of the range comedy can have. It’s not a set that is one joke followed by another; a lot of the time it actually makes you think. Sometimes it even makes you cry and yet, every joke lands perfectly. Even when Gadsby specifically spells out when the joke is coming, it’s still funny. That is the mark of a good comedy – it needs to make you laugh, even without an onslaught of jokes and one-liners. Bad Newz doesn’t seem to understand that.

The film opens with Ananya Panday (as herself) meeting the subject of her next film – a biopic – at a restaurant. The subject is Saloni Bagga (Triptii Dimri) whom Panday calls a ‘national crush’ and ‘Bhabhi 2’ (both monikers attached to Triptii Dimri on social media). You think, “Okay, they saw a chance and they took it,” but you soon realise that that is almost all the script is going to be.

Vicky Kaushal responds to a “Manmarziyaan ka Vicky Kaushal” jibe by saying, “Don’t get personal,” and the picture of a tiger is replaced with a Tiger Shroff poster. These pop culture winks and “meta-moments” are too many for them to actually have the desired effect – instead, the movie starts to look like a skit. A skit that a comedian has written to check out what jokes work with the crowd so they can put it in their final set.

Somehow the mango juice and Katrina Kaif pop-culture bit in Phone Bhoot worked better. To be fair, some of the jokes do work. When Vicky Kaushal’s character stops someone from taking down a Katrina Kaif poster, it’s funny because it’s the right amount of detachment from the real to reel. Even a cheeky Kabir Singh joke makes its way into the script. A scene where an Indian family can’t be bothered to listen to their daughter about her marriage woes because they’re missing the finale of a reality show is well set-up.

As the movie jumps from one joke to another, you almost start getting the point – the actual movie (and it seems to be a good one) is lost in under the amateur stand-up set.

For instance, the segment where a woman is “moving too fast” for the man she’s hooking up with goes from funny to problematic because the film doesn’t know when to cut a gag. Speaking of not knowing when to cut something, the biggest drawback in Bad Newz is the background score. It’s like the makers want to make sure you never miss anything that’s happening on screen by spelling it out in an annoying voice over. They’re one step away from yelling, “It’s morning!” whenever a character wakes up.

Bad Newz is an intriguing story on paper – a rare case of heteropaternal superfecundation is the setup for a love triangle. Heteropaternal refers to having ‘different fathers’ and superfecundation refers to the fertilization of two ova which leads to a twin pregnancy. Saloni is the medical marvel in this case – while nursing a broken heart, she sleeps with her boss Gurbir Pannu (Ammy Virk) and later with her ex-husband Akhil Chadha (Vicky Kaushal). A lesser (and infinitely worse) film would’ve taken this premise and given us the most misogynist nonsense imaginable but Bad Newz is focused more on Saloni’s sexual autonomy and her vision for her life.

The film’s first half is actually interesting – Saloni doesn’t entertain the idea of dating because she is focused on getting a ‘Meraki’ star as a chef (the Indian Michelin I assume) and her dream is all that matters to her. It is also cute that a brash, West Delhi munda storms into her life and quite literally sweeps her off her feet.

And it’s smarter even to acknowledge that these two things can’t coexist as seamlessly as Bollywood’s rose-tint glasses would have you believe – Akhil’s ‘love’ smothers Saloni and her ‘dream’ becomes a ‘hobby’ in his eyes. The honeymoon period isn’t without its hurdles either which makes the imminent explosive argument feel natural – are they really fighting about rajma?

The problem, then, becomes that in giving us a ‘jo jeeta who sikandar’ tussle between Gurbir and Akhil, Saloni starts to slowly exit the screen. There are parts where the film does well by noting how the men make the entire situation about themselves – she is literally almost always in the scene’s background but the writers don’t give us enough of Saloni Bagga’s perspective to actually drive this point home. This is a pity considering a fine actor like Dimrii would’ve done justice to a role like Saloni’s – the material and the actor are all there and they’re both held back by the execution. Dimrii is also the best thing about Saloni – it’s the actor doing all the heavy-lifting to make Saloni impactful.

The second half rests solely on the shoulders of the cast – Vicky Kaushal’s natural charisma in impossible to look away from. What would look absolutely insufferable on anyone else feels almost inviting in Kaushal’s voice – it’s the perfect casting because you can almost feel what Saloni saw in Akhil. And boy, does ‘Tauba Tauba’ never got old! Ammy Virk as the lovelorn Gurbir isn’t far behind – even without much to his character, Gurbir makes ‘sense’ on screen because Virk is playing him.

There are some moments in Bad Newz where I felt myself hoping against hope that the film will get its act together. How the contrast in Akhil and Gurbir’s personalities defines how they react to certain situations and how Akhil’s personality starts to seep into Gurbir as he tries harder to get the upper hand and vice versa. How Akhil finally has an important conversation with his mother about the man he really is. These glimpses of what Bad Newz could’ve been almost hurt to watch because it’s such a missed opportunity.

If only the makers had taken a step back and taken stock of the impact they wanted to have instead of focusing on the reaction they hoped the elicit.