Angry Young Men

Growing up on a steady diet of Salim-Javed films, it was heartwarming to hear folks talk about stories behind these movies.

While many of the facts were known from other interviews, the docu series does a good job of re-presenting the facts, most being narrated by big names in Hindi Film Industry who themselves have at some point in their careers been inspired by these writers.

Every cinema lover deserves to know the story of this writer duo who at one point got paid as much as the lead star in a big budget movie. Their names alone drew audiences into the theaters. I doubt if such feats will ever be repeated again!

Seeing Salim Saab and Javed Saab hug each other in the final episode was the most emotional and long-awaited moment of this documentary for me. It felt like watching two old friends reconnect after years. Honestly, it made me feel like I was hugging an old friend too. Thank you so much, Prime Video, for bringing this documentary to life.

As a die-hard fan of Amitabh Bachchan and his "Angry Young Man" movies, this documentary gave me a deep appreciation for Salim-Javed, the duo who created that iconic identity for him.

There are so many powerful moments, life lessons, and philosophies in this documentary. Like the scene where a woman asks Salim Saab to wipe his sweat, and he replies, "Yaha taqdir hoti hai." That one line shows his depth as a thinker and why he became such a legendary writer. Then there's Javed Saab talking about his struggles and sharing how he feels about the simple breakfast he eats now: "Lagta hai ye khana mera nahi hai, kisi aur ka hai." The tears in his eyes as he recalls his mother's passing and not being able to see her even now-those moments were heart-wrenching. And when he says, "Deewar pe sar maar maar ke rasta bana liya," it hits you deeply.

What struck me most was how they handled their separation. Running a successful partnership is tough, but silently parting ways without blaming each other is even harder. That's such a valuable life lesson.

Now, about the documentary itself.

I absolutely loved the intro video. The clay animation, background music, and how they connected scenes from famous movies-it was all just perfect. I've rewatched that intro so many times.

The old photos, video clips, and how they told Salim Saab and Javed Saab's story were so engaging. Bringing in actors, screenwriters, and directors from both the old and new eras to share their memories and emotions added so much depth and weight to the documentary.

If you enjoyed this documentary, don't miss the casual conversation video they've put on YouTube. It's another gem, and I'm sure you'll love it as much as I did.

Indian films particularly Hindi ones had a great fan following in 1970s and early 1980s. Amongst other factors one of the biggest factors was the phenomenon of AMITABH BACHCHAN and of course SALIM-JAVED-the creators of his "ANGRY YOUNG MAN" image. A film credits saying WRITTEN BY SALIM-JAVED for close to 1.5 decade meant that the film will be dollops of larger-than-life entertainment, dramatic scenes and paisa vasool dialogues. To be fair to the legendary duo they also tackled lost and found, romantic, serious and comedy scenes very well, but it was their angry young man discovery became their ticket to Bollywood history.

Amazon Primes 3 episodic documentary "Angry Young Men" directed by film editor Namrata Rao is a well-made tribute to the brilliant and most popular Hindi film writers Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. The series is jointly produced by the companies of their sons Salman Khans S. K. Films as well as Farhan Akhtar's Excel entertainment and is a homage to their amazing journey. The series covers a series of interviews of the duo, their families, and inputs by Amitabh Bachchan, Ramesh Sippy, Yash Chopra, Hema Malini, Jaya Bhaduri, Dharmendra, Aamir Khan, Prem Chopra, Raj Kumar Hirani, Shatrughan Sinha, Yash amongst lot of others. It starts with their childhood, their struggle, their initial individual works, their success, their peak, their arrogance, their fall, their redemption, their breakup and finally their lives as of now.

The show is full on nostalgia, many known facts, some unknown incidents, and re-creates the magic of their blockbusters particularly Deewaar, Sholay, Zanjeer and Don. The failure of Imaan Dharam also is covered very well. The starting animations mixing characters and situations from their films is excellent!! The painful memories of personal loss and financial low by Salim Khan and Javed bring a lump to their fans.

However, there is flip side too, as one feels that there should be 1-2 episode more to discuss more about their other films -Trishul, Shakti, Kaala Pathar, Kranti, etc. Also, total ignorance of films like Majboor and the grand finale Mr. India was surprising. I felt the makers should have touched the success they got after their separation Salim Khan in Naam and Javed in Arjun, Betaab, Meri Jung and later as legendary lyricist. As die-hard fans of the duo who have read a lot about them in last many decades will feel "Hey its good but we already knew most about them already"!

Having said that I cannot deny that I fully loved the series for a celebration of a golden phase of Hindi cinema and for the duo who proved for long that "A film without a good script will fall flat"!!!!

Salim-Javed is a foundational pillar which defined the stylish 70s as we know it. If are a fan of the duo, you would have already known most of the trivia and background stories covered in the 3-espisode mini series. What stood out for me are the following bits: 1) Yeaterday year footage its makers managed to bring back on screen and description of Salim-Javed's individual struggles before their legendary association happened.

2) The opening credit score capturing the funky 70s music and animation 3) screen time allocated to Sholay & Deewaar, given a total of 3 episodes

What I missed out on: 1) More details on some of their less discussed work. This should have been an 8-episode series with dedicated time given to Kaala Patthar, Don, Shaan, Shakti, and Mr. India.

2) More of Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan and Dharmendra footage because that's gold snippets.

3) An episode just on their wild life and parties after they made it big. That aspect was just given a lip service by calling them 'brats' 3) How the other big directors of the time (Prakash Mehra and M Desai) felt about their scripts and why they didn't work more together?

4) How they contributed to making the background music impacting the scenes written by them on camera.

There is much more I wanted to see but hopefully they will release it in parts over next season.

Every film buff knew about Salim -Javed , there works etc.

But this documentary goes deep into lives, there thought process of making stories, there history of childhood, divorce etc etc.

Nunaces of there stories, there thinkings, how each character developed and how it affected the whole generation is very well shown.

It's well made and everyone was speaking truth as per there thinking. Everyone tried to be honest and gave there perspective.

I think it's worth the watch and how the greatest story writers of Hindi Cinema has evolved is very well shown.

Though everyone spoke i missed ms Salma's viewpoints.