‘Angry Young Men’ review: A true tribute to Salim-Javed’s stardom and anger
‘Angry Young Men’ on Prime Video is a soulful song to celebrate the legacy of Salim-Javed. It perfectly encapsulates what they meant to the industry, and how they will always be remembered.
cast Crew
Amitabh Bachchan
actor
Javed Akhtar
Poet and Lyricist
You don’t have to be from the 70s or 80s to understand the Salim-Javed duo. Anyone who grew up watching Hindi cinema, or has even a passing love for Bollywood, would know how the duo changed the history of cinema for Indian audiences forever. They created an ‘angry young man’ for the screen, and brought screenwriters to the forefront like no one else had done before them. Or could do after them. ‘Angry Young Men’, a documentary miniseries based on the life and work of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, celebrates that history.
Divided into three 45-minute episodes, it is like a visual biography of two writers who were fearless and unabashed in the way they worked and lived. As the documentary establishes in the first episode itself, none of them were apprehensive that when they decided to try their luck in films, they would not be able to make it big in the industry in any capacity. They were on a mission to change their lives and their futures. At one point in the series, Khan tells the audience how he left a privileged life in Indore, and never asked for a penny, even when he had no place to live or nothing to eat.
For Akhtar, life was nothing but a film story, and he had already written its climax: where he reaches despite all odds.
‘Angry Young Men’ seems like a well-made, thoroughly researched and quite organically presented series. The people in it talk on camera as if they are actually going back to the past, with a lot of honesty and entertainment. Even Salim and Javed themselves don’t hold back. They discuss their personal struggles but never try to hide the fact that they celebrate once they get to work together.
This is not a complete glorification of them and their work. In fact, whenever you imagine them as the true heroes of your life, you are told that they had some mistakes of their own. Like Akhtar’s ex-wife Honey Irani, there is no small talk about the fallout that Salim-Javed suffered when ‘Imaan Dharam’ flopped. “It angered people that all their films were hits. People said, ‘They think there is God!’ And then how they used to incite people. So naturally, you wouldn’t want to… (you would say) ‘Well, they deserve a flop. This will make them come to their senses’. It was bound to happen,” she explains how the duo had to face that fall in their careers because of their arrogance and overconfidence.
Even Jaya Bachchan, who has acted in several films written by Salim-Javed, describes him as a “childish kid”, among many other things.
The series takes you through the ups and downs of the authors’ lives, but never makes you feel like you didn’t need to know that information, or that you didn’t care about that story. It’s as interesting as any full-blown novel. Spices Entertaining. Probably because you get two heroes who work together, rise above conflicts, get drunk on their power, suffer a meltdown and rise again – just like in any other value for money film.
‘Angry Young Men’ does two things well. First, it gives you a chance to get to know Salim-Javed better, and second, it gives you a chance to know them through both their work and their life choices. You are told about their family background, their two marriages, their parenting styles and the reasoning behind what they wrote. In fact, it is almost delightful to understand how the two writers never cared about socio-political reflection in their stories, and yet their best works comment on how the fabric of our country was changing at that time. Akhtar admits in the series, “We created a vigilante in our films through our Angry Young Man, and we were innocent about it,” he admitted, referring to Vijay’s role played by Amitabh Bachchan in films like ‘Deewaar’, ‘Trishul’ and ‘Zanjeer’.
The series shows you real-life footage of the ‘Housefull’ boards running in theatres during the release of ‘Deewar’ and ‘Sholay’. It humbles you by acknowledging the real-life people who made overnight fortunes by selling tickets to these blockbuster hits. It feels like Salim-Javed not only predicted the future of their films, but also used a magic wand to make their predictions come true. ‘Angry Young Men’ helps you immerse yourself in a story you always knew, but never really knew before. It is as shameless as the two men it represents.
In the third episode of the series, the 77-year-old Akhtar, quite boldly, takes the blame for his broken marriage with former actress Honey Irani. He tells the audience that she is probably the only person in his life he feels guilty for. And at the same time, we see the 88-year-old Khan talking fondly about loving Helen while he was already married to Salma Khan. The series doesn’t allow you to judge the two men based on their deeds and mistakes. In fact, it does its best job of humanising two of Hindi cinema’s biggest superstars, who worked behind the camera but were always bigger than those working in front of it.
The series talks about the Salim-Javed feud in detail, but never makes it controversial. It gives them a chance to address it in the most respectful way possible. Of course, it helps when people like Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Farhan Akhtar and Karan Johar speak out on the issue, but nothing, even controversy, can ever diminish the legacy of Salim-Javed. At the end of it, you see Khan talking about living a “contented” life with “no regrets” and “no guilt”. That’s where it all ends.
‘Angry Young Men’ lets you enjoy their stories without regrets or questions. It’s like watching a good movie that may not have a message, but has a lot to think about, and definitely a lot to entertain.
