‘Angry Young Men’ review: The iconic Salim-Javed dish out warm anecdotes and some insights
Namrata Rao’s three-episode docuseries is out on Prime Video.
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Early in Angry Young Men, about Hindi cinema’s renowned scriptwriting duo Salim-Javed, there is an iconic clip from Sholay (1975), the one in which the brigand Gabbar Singh inquires about the number of men who took down his gang: “Kitne aadmi the?”
“Sardar, do thay” (only two) comes the plaintive answer, before cutting to the credit: “Written by Salim-Javed.”
From this punchy beginning, director Namrata Rao settles into a lightweight, meandering exploration of the backstory of the Salim-Javed collaboration on 24 productions (22 of which were hits) and their massive impact on Hindi cinema and beyond. Although featuring directors, other writers, actors and family members, the stars of the Prime Video docuseries are indubitably 88-year-old Salim Khan and 79-year-old Akhtar.
They wouldn’t have had it any other way. In 1973, the upcoming writers hired painters to stencil their names on to the posters of their breakthrough film Zanjeer, an audacious act committed without the knowledge of Zanjeer’s makers.
Among the themes of Angry Young Men is the respect that Salim-Javed created for the screenwriting profession by demanding high salaries, proper credit and acknowledgement of the importance of a script to a film’s box-office performance.
Namrata Rao, a reputed editor, makes her directorial debut with Angry Young Men. The series follows the format of the celebrity-studded The Romantics, about the legacy of Yash Raj Films.
Angry Young...
