Angry Young Men review: Writers Salim-Javed and co take a trip down the memory lane

Bollywood's iconic films like Sholay, Deewar, and Zanjeer have more than Amitabh Bachchan in common. The writer duo who wrote these iconic films were Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, popularly known as Salim-Javed. The two writers are credited for bringing in a tsunami of change in Bollywood in the 1970s and creating Amitabh Bachchan's much-revered persona of the Angry Young Man on screen. The two men have scripted history in Hindi cinema and delivered 22 consecutive hits at the prime of their career- a feat that no one has matched yet. But after a successful few years, the duo - comprising of writer-actor Salim Khan and lyricist Javed Akhtar split, thus ending their glorious era in Bollywood. While their split was widely discussed in the press, the reason remained unknown. This and more are explored in Prime Video's latest docu-series Angry Young Men, which talks of veterans Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar's early lives, journey to Bombay, finding a footing in the film industry as writers and eventually becoming the most successful writing pair, who had the audacity and confidence to demand more money than the leading hero of the movie.

Directed by first-time director Namrata Rao and backed by Salim-Javed's children - Salman Khan, Farhan Akhtar, and Zoya Akhtar along with Reema Kagti and Ritesh Sidhwani, Angry Young Men takes you inside the lives of these ageing veterans. The three-part docu series is insightful and full of anecdotes narrated by both the writers and several industry veterans, their wives, and children.

'The Brats' Who Ruled Bollywood

Until Salim-Javed burst into the scene, Hindi cinema had never given writers that much credit. Their dynamic, hard-hitting scripts created blockbusters on screen and led to stunning portrayals of new kinds of heroes. Akhtar argued that their writing may have reflected the political climate of the time, where unemployed youth had a lot of pent-up anger against the government, and the system. Still, it was not a conscious decision to write something so close to reality. "That wasn't the plan," Akhtar admitted. The successes lead to somewhat brashness and arrogance, as Jaya Bachchan pointed out, "They were the bratswho knew how to grab attention and even did self-promotion to make people notice their work." In their prime, they would demand a lakh more than the fees being offered to the film's leading man. And most filmmakers agreed to their condition - because their success rate was high.

The series beautifully takes the viewers to their initial years, both coming to Bombay to work in the film industry and their initial years of struggle - living in cramped spaces or even outside on the road. Both get emotional talking about the past. Khan, while speaking about his mother, whom he lost at a young age, and Akhtar, while talking about his days of struggle when he went without a single morsel of food for days. The anecdotes are important as they shaped the two writers and were reflected in the characters they wrote. Both lost their mothers at a young age and hence wrote the matriarch as the anchor in hero's life in their film. "Mere paas Maa hai (I have mother with me)," a dialogue that remains iconic to date, and one that is used by almost all Indians (including Rahman in his Oscar-winning speech) at some point in their lives was coined by the writer duo, who perhaps craved their mother's presence all their lives.

Inception of Sholay

The series also highlights how Sholay came into being. Ramesh Sippy, the director of the film, was in two minds to change the ending with Amitabh Bachchan living in the new version after the film opened to poor numbers. Akhtar and Khan recall how they were confident of their story and insisted Sippy to not change the ending despite the film receiving bad reviews and a lacklustre response. However, the first Monday after the release changed the fate of the film.

The split

While the three-part document talks at length about the duo and their years of success, they shy away from actually diving deep into what led to the split. Khan states it was a civil split, while Akhtar only states that it was he who decided to move on and pursue a career individually. Akhtar rued that a sense of fatigue had come in and he felt their days at peak were over.

With numerous cameos of actors, ranging from Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan to Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan to directors and their children, Salman Khan, Arbaaz, Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar, the series Angry Young Men takes you down the memory lane. The series is for true cinema lovers who have perhaps grown up watching films, memorising iconic dialogues and never knowing who created them until now.

Angry Young Men takes cinema lovers back in time and tells the inspiring story of two stalwarts who scripted history in Bollywood. The three-part docu series is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.