The good news first: Bad Newz is not all bad. But is that good enough for a movie that aspires to be an all-out laugh riot? NO. The moments in the overlong film that sparkle a touch are way too few and far between to fully offset the repercussions of the ones that don't.
Directed by Anand Tiwari and written by Ishita Moitra and Tarun Dudeja, Bad Newz is more frizzle than sizzle. It is a still-born comedy about a pair of dads and a mom with twins in her womb as a result of being impregnated twice in the same ovulation cycle.
Since the audience, thanks to the trailer, is aware of all this and there are no real surprises in the film until it wends its way to its denouement that is meant to be a way out of the imbroglio for everyone concerned.
Forget the lack of combustible chemistry between Vicky Kaushal and Triptii Dimri, the film struggles to find the right combination of the biology of the relationships and the physics of the plot.
A paternity test and a gynac's prognosis spells double trouble for the woman as well as for the rom-com with a twist that triggers a triangular tangle of the sort that obviously represents a first for Hindi cinema. But everything else that unfolds once the rare phenomenon has been explained and unleashed is largely predictable.
The film's pivotal idea – hetero-paternal superfecundation – comes from the 2016 American television movie Double Mommy, which, in addition, sought to address the serious issue of a date rape. The rest of Bad Newz is a merry, mirthful melange.
It throws rajma and burritos, chicken legs and soya into a shiny pan and stirs it such vigour that, when the hurly-burly is done, it is hard to tell what the end product was really meant to be.The culinary analogy is inevitable – all the three key characters are in the business of food. Saloni Bagga (Tripti Dimri) is a Tex-Mex chef who aspires to earn a Meraki star – a recognition of excellence in the service industry – for the outlet she works for.
Akhil Chadha (Vicky Kaushal) runs a chaap shop that his father set up in Delhi's Karol Bagh. He is the sort of guy who does not take no for an answer and bamboozles his way into Saloni's life while harping incessantly on his no-mo (no mobile) phobia.
He isn't a pretty specimen on the face of it but the audience is constantly encouraged to warm up to his cavalier ways, part of which stems from the overwhelming attention his doting mother (Sheeba Chaddha) showers on him.
Gurbir Singh Pannu (Ammy Virk) is a Mussoorie hotelier who owns a Gujarati restaurant to atone for a beloved he lost because he failed to give up his love for chicken for her sake.
Bad Newz, Dharma Productions' follow-up to the far more perky (if not more quirky) Good Newwz (2019), which hinged on a couple of in-vitro fertilizations gone wrong, relies on Vicky Kaushal to pull it out of the fire. The lead actor gives the role of a brash and rash West Delhi momma's boy his all when a bit of temperance would have stood him in better stead.
Ammy Virk, playing a far more sorted man, is the slow and steady one who serves as an ideal foil to the mercurial Akhil Chadha, whose presence on the screen is accompanied on the soundtrack by a sab ton vadda (greatest of them all) refrain.
As for Triptii Dimri, she seems intent on concealing the sea of emotions swirling within and around her behind an inscrutable mask as the befuddled character fights to assert her right to decide what is best for her and her unborn babies.
The two men are at each other's throat for the most part but learn the hard way that no matter what they come up with they can only play second fiddle.
The film does not reach this point of the narrative until it is well into its second half when an all-weather agony aunt (Neha Dhupia) gives the trio involved four options and, a little later, the doctor (Faisal Rashid) makes an alarming revelation about the state of the foetus.
The film opens with Ananya Panday playing herself setting up a meeting with Saloni Bagga. The actor is prepping for a film about the latter's unusual life. The female protagonist narrates her story – a commonplace framing device for a film that aspires to be anything but common.
Bad Newz rushes through the first act – a whirlwind romance that culminates in a hurried wedding and a European honeymoon – before it lumbers through an extended middle portion that tries very hard to be funny only to discover that momentum is an illusory pursuit.
The final stretch of Bad Newz, where the drollery of the early parts gives way to a slew of emotional outpourings and deeper messages about the limits of masculinity and the power of motherhood, goes on and on. It does not end until one of the two guys responsible for the predicament that the lady finds herself in gives vent to his altruistic instincts.
The first post-interval sequence has Ananya Panday munching on popcorn. Even when Triptii Dimri's character serves the guest something more substantial to savour, the camera does not lose sight of the tub of popcorn.
It is probably the director's way of letting on that Bad Newz does not intend to be anything more than that – a light snack, part sweet, part sour, rather than a full wholesome meal with a wider range of flavours. That isn't a problem. Who minds a little fun, froth and flippancy? It is the absence of genuine crackle in the average, single-note confection that Bad Newz is that does the film in.
