Angry Young Men Review: An Engaging and Inspiring Retelling

Encompassing one of the most successful professional collaborations between writers Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, this Prime Video documentary series is a walk down memory lane that is both a fun and inspiring watch. The Salim Javed documentary has 3 episodes, each with a runtime of around

Produced by Salman Khan Films, Excel Media & Entertainment and Tiger Baby, Angry Young Men is executive produced by Salma Khan, Salman Khan, Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti.

Angry Young Men Review

The name “Salim-Javed”, as the documentary mentions multiple times, was one that brought faith about moviegoers and movie makers all at once. Bringing forth the life and times of the power duo who wrote the scripts of some of the most successful Hindi films between 1971 and 1987, debut director Namrata Rao’s Angry Young Men is a docuseries of many warm emotions. Starting right from when Akhtar and Khan started out in the industry and even a little before, the series’s 3 episodes encapsulate their struggles, then their successes and eventually their separation in a compact and engaging series.

Prime Video’s Angry Young Men is a documentary that showcases the good times of the duo and simply mentions the bad ones. In an industry where actors are king in films, the writing duo brought forth a revolution that put scriptwriters on the roadmap. The stories that are narrated throughout the series are engaging and humorous, with a tinge of emotion mixed into it. They are fondly told by not just the protagonists of this “film” but by those nearest and dearest to the two writers along with many admirers of their films.

The documentary does a fantastic job of bringing forth those nostalgic emotions that drive the average Indian’s everyday lives. Not focusing on reenactments of any kind, the documentary focuses majorly on the people in Akhtar and Khan’s lives as well as those who live by the films that they have written as well as whose lives those films had touched. From their families to other actors, journalists and writers – the documentary’s focus on people-driven storytelling is its biggest win. Moreover, Javed Akhtar and Salim Khan have a way of telling stories and that comes out in every frame that they are on-screen. The stories, although quite surface-level and kept clean, are fun to listen to and the episodes fly by before you know it.

Angry Young Men brings forth conversations surrounding the wiring process and goes into the reasons why the duo’s writing worked at that time. Making the concept of the “angry young man” a much-loved and celebrated, the interviewees delve into the reasons why they had such an impact on the audience, subverting expectations at the time. It’s interesting to listen to, more so when you compare notes between the writers’ thoughts back then and now. It’s also quite funny when they say that at that time they just wrote what they knew, without understanding the socio-political impact that those characters and situations had.

As mentioned above, in spite of giving an interesting outlook on the characters and their stories, everything that we learn about the people themselves throughout the runtime of the series is kept surface-level. You can feel yourself at a distance from these people, regardless of how homey and approachable the atmosphere of the documentary makes you feel. You also don’t get to learn too much about the infamous split of the duo that rocked everyone at the time, which is quite a shame. That being said, it’s heartening to see both families and their friends speaking so fondly of Javed Akhtar & Salim Khan and reminds you how talented they both are, both individually and together.

Final Thoughts

This engaging, inspiring and entertaining documentary on the legendary writing duo Salim Khan & Javed Akhtar leaves you hooked. Although it feels surface-level, the discussions surrounding the different aspects of their personal and professional lives are quite interesting and leaves you wanting to know more. There’s a drama in the series that is infectious and the clips of the duo’s blockbuster movies leave you feeling nothing but charmed.

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