Salim-Javed’s Angry Young Men Review: Diplomatic Salman Khan & frank Honey Irani in a wholesome not holistic documentary

Angry Young Men, a new documentary series on Prime Video on Bollywood's most famous writing duo Salim-Javed, streams on Amazon Prime Video.

Who doesn’t like a good old trip down the memory lane? Especially when the current Bollywood lacks the cross-departmental zing of yore. You don’t hear a filmy dialogue flying off the tongues of the young and old on the streets anymore. Dialoguebaazi is a relic of the past. But even in the distant past, while people might remember such dialogues as Salim tumhein marne nahin dega aur Anarkali hum tumhein jeene nahin denge, few recall Mughal-e-Azam (1960) writers Amanullah Khan, Wajahat Mirza, and Ehsan Rizvi, barring Kamal Amrohi, who became a director. That changed come 1970s, with the advent of two industry outsiders who came like a bolt from the blue and changed cinema as we knew it. Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, or better known together as Salim-Javed.

From AR Rahman saying Deewaar’s iconic dialogue Mere paas Maa hai in his Oscar-winning speech, to Gabbar’s Kitne aadmi thhe (Sholay); Don ka intezaar to gyarah mulkon ki police kar rahi hai (Don); yeh police station hai tumhare baap ka ghar nahin (Zanjeer); Main aaj bhi pheke huye paise nahin uthata or Jo pacchees baras mein nahin hua woh ab hoga (Deewaar), so on and so forth. What hadn't happened in 25 years since India's independence in the Hindi film industry, the duo did it. They changed industry norms.

Their dialogues have become oral memory and history for a generation that grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, in the pre-internet era, consuming the duo’s epoch-defining films from the ’70s. Those dialogues are in our DNA. From the young to old, rich to poor, urban to rural, these dialogues spoke to, and of, an India in a way no other era has. Capturing the zeitgeist of the 1970s, the socio-politics of an India that was on the cusp of change, around the Emergency, and the countrymen’s anger reflected in their dialogues and scripts. But they were innocent of the relevance and impact of their work, admits Javed Akhtar in a new documentary series on the duo, Angry Young Men, on Amazon Prime Video. It's refreshing to see a documentary on screenwriters and not a film director or film star for a change. Bring on more such series on those behind the cameras.

Writers are writing in silos today. There is none that speaks for an entire generation, like the duo did in the ’70s. In today’s world that witnessed, last year, the screen writers and actors guilds protest in America which brought Hollywood to its knees and concede to demands, and which bolstered India’s nascent screenwriters’ association (SWA) to put forth demands for their rights, can one imagine the kind of chutzpah Salim-Javed wielded so much as to stencil-paint their names across posters of films (Zanjeer, 1973) they have written and demand a lakh higher than the top star (if Amitabh Bachchan was paid Rs 20 lakh for Dostana, 1980, Salim-Javed were paid Rs 21 lakh)? Unthinkable today, an unprecedented phenomenon, a crucial chapter in the history of Indian cinema. They rightfully made the script (and the writers) the star of the films, as it should be.

That was the allure of this screenwriting duo, the only writers back in the day who gave a bound script to the directors, who climbed meteoric heights together. Almost Coen brothers-like. Only our two men were brothers from different mothers, both their mothers died when they were very young and this absent mother figure, and difficult father-son equation, would recur, Oedipal-like, in many of their movies (Deewaar, Trishul) like a leitmotif. They also helped create the modern Indian woman on screen: strong, not namby-pamby, professionals with promising backgrounds, though once the hero came on screen, they receded to the sidelines. But think of Seeta aur Geeta, how they made the heroine (Hema Malini) the hero of the film and relegated the hero to a supporting role (Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar). They brought the first Dacoit Western (Sholay) and the first caper where emotions were absent (Don) to Hindi cinema. But their nonpareil contribution to Indian cinema, at a time of romantic films, was the creation of the reticent, brooding hero seeking justice, the Angry Young Man, which launched Amitabh Bachchan’s career.

Two men starkly so different and yet so similar. If Salim was born into affluence, youngest of seven siblings and son of a DIG police in Indore, Gwalior-born and Bhopal-bred Javed was the son of a Communist poet and Bollywood songwriter. Both the sons ran to Bombay and into a life of struggle. Salim was an actor who did a handful of films, played the hero and villain, but didn't taste as much success. Akhtar slept on railway platforms, roads, park, went empty stomach for days, he says in the docu series, and tears up when he says, he hasn't been able to let go of the memory of those days. The two had met on the sets of Sarhadi Lutera (1966).

But there’s a generation that doesn’t know them, and there is no writer since who has managed to create that kind of noise and held that kind of clout in the industry, in that light, and the need to archive our phenomenal cinema history, this documentary series was necessary.

Angry Young Men Overview

Javed Akhtar (left) and Salim Khan from a still from 'Angry Young Men'.

It’s no mean feat that the winning pair, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, delivered 22 blockbusters of their 24-film partnership. A precedent never seen before and, perhaps, will never be seen again, in Bollywood or any Indian film industry. Salim and Javed were two bodies one soul, one thought, one voice, says Jaya Bachchan in the docu series on Hindi cinema’s greatest screenwriters who shaped the ’70s Bollywood decade. The series strums the right chords of nostalgia, invites the audiences into their homes, and listen to the families talk about these two men in a relaxed drawing-room-conversation format. “They were the stars, they were the brats,” says Jaya.

The documentary series, produced by the duo’s respective children (Salman Khan and Zoya Akhtar), which marks the directorial debut of film editor Namrata Rao (Kahaani, Lust Stories, Ghost Stories, Made in Heaven), weaves archival footage from the blockbusters and the flops (Immaan Dharam, Shaan) that the duo created, spotlighting their iconic characters, with talking heads: actors who worked with them (Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Hema Malini, Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Sharad Saxena), actors who grew up watching the characters they created (Hrithik Roshan, Aamir Khan, Yash, Kareena Kapoor Khan), the duo and their respective families, screenwriters who studied their films (Anjum Rajabali, Abhijat Joshi, Varun Grover), trade analysts and film critics, and present-day (Juhi Chaturvedi) and upcoming screenwriters.

Angry Young Men Review

In 2015, Diptakirti Chaudhuri wrote a book on them, Salim-Javed: The Story of Hindi Cinema’s Greatest Screenwriters. The Salim-Javed’s story isn’t one shrouded in mystery so to speak, what remains unknown is the reason behind their infamous split. This documentary, replete with warm anecdotes, fails to spill the beans. Javed Akhtar, who walked out of the partnership in 1982, remains tight-lipped, the trigger for that act must have left a deep wound that hasn’t healed still. The documentary touches ever so slightly on how that split affected the respective families.

Angry Young Men could have been like The Romantics or Modern Masters: SS Rajamouli, a puff piece, but it rescues itself a tad bit by letting its two heroes to self-reflect, confess, get emotional, even self-critical (especially Akhtar) — and yet it doesn’t go the full distance.

Angry Young Men Trailer

Angry Young Men Review: What works

The research and foraging for archival footages is on point. The excellent graphic illustration in opening credit rolls and groovy track and background music. It was nice to see Javed take us to where the Mahal Films studio stood, where he got his first apprenticeship for Rs 50 a month. And to see the Marina Guest House where Salim lived in his struggling days. Wish more of Bombay of those days was shown, places they lived in or frequented to.

Brownie points for the docu series includes Shyam Benegal, the filmmaker who pioneered the parallel film movement in the 1970s, debuting with Shabana Azmi in Ankur (1974), as Salim-Javed were painting the town red with their mainstream blockbusters.

The documentary reflects on the duo's professional struggles and personal lives equally. There is emotion and introspection. Angry Young Men is a perfect title for a docu series on the creators of the prototype for the angry young man, who is authentic to his self, a nihilist in a hopeless world. As meteoric was the duo's rise, equally down they came with a thud. Like Greek tragic heroes, their hamartia (tragic flaw) was hubris (self-pride/confidence), what the world saw as arrogance. If critics wrote off their films, they would issue advertisements saying their films would be hits. They rubbed people off in the wrong way in the industry, so their falling out was celebrated.

The third episode stands out because we see Helen speak, for a good while on screen, after ages, because we see Honey Irani in a take-no-prisoner mode calling her ex-husband (Javed Akhtar) Gabbar. Honey says the duo were ‘not humble’, were ‘brats’, a fact corroborated by Jaya and Shabana Azmi. The episode stands out, most of all, because it connects the past with the present, by bringing aboard upcoming screenwriters talking about the issues they face, shedding light on the state of screenwriting in Bollywood today.

Angry Young Men Review: What does not work

It feels the cast or interviewees are talking among themselves, in an echo chamber. Where is the critical distance and critical gauge, objectivity that a documentary demands? Why must the producers, who are not the children of our protagonists, feature as interviewees in this documentary? Self-promotion or favour, for they add no new insight. Instead, giving a fraction second of fame to a technician from one of the films the duo wrote for, or their house helps talking about their favourite Salim-Javed film, would have been heartening to see.

For a documentary on screenwriters, a more detailed focus on what screenwriting entails, how exactly they arrived at any particular iconic dialogue of theirs, and did they fight tooth and nail with the censor board when they brought scissors to their scripts (which happened with Sholay, for instance) would have been interesting to witness on screen.

The docu-series celebrates the good, touches on the bad, but  skirts around the ugly. Salman Khan Productions, Excel Media Entertainment and Tiger Baby come together to put a wholesome feast but still a feel-good piece, speaking to those available at an arm’s distance. The makers should have toiled a bit more to go searching for the producers and critics the duo rubbed the wrong way and get their POVs, or their families, if they are not alive. They should have gone looking for the other screenwriters who were rendered jobless in the peak of their careers or lost gigs/money in the ’70s owing to Salim-Javed’s enigma that pulled most producers to their doors.

Salman’s mother Salma Khan (née Sushila Charak) does not talk. We see glimpses of her, when the food on the table is being served, or in the sepia-hued photos and memories of the past, or when son Arbaaz speaks of her. In contrast is Honey Irani and Shabana Azmi who, of course, have been in the public domain and been vocal. Honey’s brief confessional mode humanises this piece, shows that great men can be flawed, too.

While Salim-Javed admit to getting inspired from Western films when writing their own, Salim says “originality is the art of concealing the source” and mentions a particular scene from Henry Hathaway’s Garden of Evil (1954) that made it to Sholay, the two don’t mention Sergio Leone’s epic 1968 Spaghetti Western Once Upon a Time in the West, whose scene by scene lifts is what Sholay comprises. I guess, by now, it is known by all and, hence, implied. They didn't reveal the main source, yet again.

This story of the Last of the Mohicans leaves us wanting for more. For more chapters from their lives.

Star Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

Angry Young Men is streaming on Amazon Prime