Yo Yo Honey Singh: Famous Review: What’s New?

In this intimate Netflix documentary, we trace Honey Singh’s rise and fall from and comeback to superstardom after years of taking a hiatus. Starting off as an ordinary boy with extraordinary dreams, the documentary traces every small detail of his life to give viewers an understanding of the man behind the star.

The film has a runtime of 79 minutes.

Yo Yo Honey Singh: Famous Review

The problem with making documentaries on people who are still alive and thriving is that there is an inherent story that stays untold. Singh’s documentary film, produced by those behind The Elephant Whisperers, is a 79-minute mishmash of trying to badly explain bad songs with misogynistic lyrics and discussing mental health struggles in the most dramatic way possible. In the end, unfortunately, it ends on a cliffhanger because, as mentioned previously, there’s more to Singh’s personal and professional lives that we have to wait and see and no amount of cool drone shots over a concert will be able to fulfil that gaping hole in the storytelling.

Yo Yo Honey Singh: Famous is an odd cookie. It’s entertaining and insightful in parts and talks big about opening up and looking deeply into Singh’s mildly controversial life but when all is said and done, the film doesn’t present anything new, nor does it believably present the old news. The film feels mostly disjointed and confusing, presenting facts that we have come across in an impactless way.

The film follows Singh’s meteoric rise to fame and addresses most of the key controversies of his life. However, it’s interesting how we never really get too deep into anything – it feels like the documentary baits us with promises to in-depth discussion but other than narrating how difficult his diagnoses were in a shockingly dramatic way, there’s hardly anything that one can count as insight. It’s almost insulting to walk into this with these expectations and get nothing in return. The film also feels really odd in the way that it tries to drill into you that Singh came from nothing and became something. And while his impact on the Indian music scene is undeniable, regardless of the misogyny, the former claim feels like it’s a bit much to drum up sympathy.

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In that regard, these moments are made so dramatic that it takes away what little sympathy you feel for the singer. It feels overwhelming and forced and cheapens the experience by quite a lot. I think the message is good and there’s emotion behind a lot of what is said but there’s little else to it. Plus, if you’re hoping for something to be exposed, this one isn’t going to give you that.

Final Thoughts

It’s a little odd watching this film – it presents a simplistic and rather one-dimensional view of the singer’s life and picks every controversy to address in the most non-addressing way possible. It doesn’t deliver what it promises, leaving us to wonder what it brings to the table to discern it from others of the genre.

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