For someone who rarely (if at all) cracks a smile, Aryan Khan does have a wicked sense of humour.
Swinging wildly between spoof, satire, self-referential and self-awareness is Shah Rukh Khan's son's directorial debut The Ba***ds of Bollywood. Playing out over seven episodes, this Netflix series is a cheeky, and in parts courageous, look at the bad, mad, rad world of Hindi cinema that the 27-year-old Khan scion has grown up in.
The workings of Bollywood, including what transpires on its fringes, has been explored and presented in various ways in the past. More recent examples include the incisive ticking time-bomb approach of Zoya Akhtar's excellent debut film Luck By Chance, and the historically sweeping semi-biographical treatment adopted by Vikramaditya Motwane in his immensely watchable web series Jubilee. The Ba***ds of Bollywood — while borrowing a bit from both and others in the genre — takes the informed decision of veering more towards Farah Khan's wildly entertaining Om Shanti Om, a film headlined by SRK, that both spoofed Bollywood and celebrated it.
To be honest, I wasn't quite taken in by Aryan's show in the beginning. The first two episodes, in fact, seemed unwieldy, ticking off juicy tittle-tattle on a Reddit thread or picking up blind items from a Bollywood gossip handle on Instagram. But there definitely is a sparkle or two even in these initial moments, including the penultimate minutes of the first episode in which a drug bust at a Bollywood party is interrupted by a comical narcotics agent with a striking resemblance to Sameer Wankhede. Google if you still don't know who that is.
Aryan gloriously, and more importantly, fearlessly puts himself out there in various other instances, including one in which the male lead — a popular young actor — is told by a cheeky cop that he will get "more famous" after he walks out of jail. And in a moment that will most definitely make you laugh out loud, a star kid is told by her mom to smile ("Stop behaving like Aryan", is the veiled threat) in front of the paparazzi cameras.
Staying true to that vein, Aryan — who has co-written the show with Bilal Siddiqui and Manav Chauhan, and penned the dialogues himself — crafts a show that not only offers an inside peek into Bollywood, often operating within a hyperbolic framework, but also seems to laugh at the layman's exaggerated notions — fed by social media and beyond — of tinsel town and its stars.
Power play to cancel culture, #MeToo to mafia, The Ba***ds of Bollywood touches upon all, but strictly with a lightness of touch, thus ensuring that it remains seductively engaging through most of its nearly seven-hour runtime.
The N-word — nepotism — is tackled in the form of an outsider-insider dynamic with Delhi boy Aasmaan (Lakshya) becoming an overnight sensation with the blockbuster success of his debut film 'Revolver'. His second film — with Karan Johar, no less — brings him face to face with ultimate star kid Karishma (Sahher Bambba), whose father Ajay Talvar (Bobby Deol) lives up to the part — in ways good, bad and ugly — of being "the biggest superstar in Bollywood". Sparks fly between Aasmaan and Karishma, as does Ajay's temper, who is somehow determined to keep the youngsters away from each other, on screen and off it.
But Aasmaan — who himself is labelled "cocky, arrogant and pompous" — is having none of it, surrounded that he is by a strong support system that includes his bum chum Parvaiz (Raghav Juyal), manager Sanya (Anya Singh), and uncle (Manoj Pahwa), with the latter providing a chuckle-worthy side track as a wannabe rock star who suddenly hits pay dirt.
The dark forces looking to pull down Aasmaan are led by studio head Freddy Sodawallah (Manish Chaudhari), who, like many wily producers out there, is determined to trap Aasmaan in a contract that prevents him from working with other production houses.
What works for The Ba***ds of Bollywood is that it says it as it is. Everyone seems to be game to put themselves out there for a laugh or a lampoon, which is exactly what a watch in this genre warrants. So you have Karan Johar taking his "flag bearer of nepotism" reputation on the chin and revelling in it, referring to himself as "movie mafia" ("don't f*** with the movie mafia", are his exact words). Karan, unlike the big names who flit in and out, has a full-fledged role in the series, and the man plays it very smooth.
The Ba***ds of Bollywood has some clever, often gleefully meta, writing. That includes rapper Badshah audaciously complaining that someone else's singing is making his ears bleed. A deep conversation between Aamir Khan and Bahubali maker S.S. Rajamouli — which, given the weight of their intellectual reputation would seem, to one not within earshot, to involve the art and craft of filmmaking — is actually a debate between which is better: idli-sambhar or vada-pav. Johar, going against his polished image, is seen cursing, often referencing mothers and sisters in his abuses. Rajat Bedi plays an actor, a "victim" of Bollywood politics, but is delightfully unhinged, coming off as a hunky (and himbo) version of Chunky Panday. Arshad Warsi — channeling Shah Rukh Khan's look in Raees — is a hoot as an underworld don with film producer aspirations.
My favourite — and safe to say for most — is Emraan Hashmi, who sportingly lives up to his "serial kisser" reputation by playing an intimacy coach. Emraan's subtle sense of humour has rarely been mined in his films, and his scenes with Raghav's Parvaiz (think Murder's Kaho na kaho, complete with the Tamally maak lyrics), are some of the best in the series.
While most of the humour lands well, the dialogue, surprisingly, is often clunky. The emotional moments, however, mostly hit home — Aasmaan's interaction in hospital with his father (Vijayant Kohli) brings a lump to the throat — and the action scenes, with Lakshya putting his Kill skills to good use — are convincingly done, even if the VFX comes off as slightly dodgy.
The cast fits the bill, with each bringing in what is expected of them, and sometimes even more. Raghav is the pick of the lot, his ability to balance his natural comic timing with strong dramatic moments often allowing him to steal the show. Even the lesser players, like Ajay Talvar's son Shaumik, essayed in all its demented glory by Divik Sharma, leave an impression.
Shah Rukh Khan, of course, pops in for a cameo as himself, contributing vastly to the humour and heart of the series, in the way that only he can. The "Ghante ka Badshah" scene deserves its own fanbase.
There are the other much-talked-about cameos — Ranveer Singh's, expectedly, is the most fun, while Rajkummar Rao and Arjun Kapoor sportingly play to the gallery with their "actor-non actor" tags.
The twist towards the end — which finally makes sense of the title — could come off as wicked or weird, depending on which side of the throw-anything-at-me spectrum you are on, and turns the whole nepotism debate on its head. What it does indicate is the possibility of at least one more season. We are game for it, of course. What we aren't are the one too many product placements. If one of the world's biggest movie stars and the number one global streaming platform don't have the budget, then who does?
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