What, then, is Seth Rogen’s role in *The Studio* (2025, Apple TV), if not Larry, in his own unique way? Consider the sixth episode of this sensational series, where Seth, playing the beta studio boss, finds himself stuck at a party among serious doctors—none of whom can fathom the significance of movies. Yet, Seth’s character is unequivocally obsessed! This obsession resonates not just in Hollywood but Bollywood as well.
I personally try not to mix my friends between these two worlds. One group eventually grows bored through the evening. Incidentally, Shah Rukh Khan’s (SRK) production house, Red Chillies, produced a film that comes quite close to *Curb Your Enthusiasm* in tone: *Kaamyaab* (2019). It’s a sheer slice of showbiz low life, carried entirely on the superb shoulders of Sanjay Mishra, who plays a retired character actor remembered for one memorable line: “Enjoying life. Aur option kya hai!”
What about SRK’s Red Chillies series for Netflix, *The B***ds of Bollywood* (read: *Bads of Bollywood*), set in Mumbai’s movie and entertainment industry? Sure, there could be echoes of *Curb Your Enthusiasm*, even elements of *Entourage*, but it’s more so the filminess of Farah Khan (*Om Shanti Om*), blended with the edginess and empathy of Zoya Akhtar (*Luck By Chance*). This series stands tall as a fully fun, silly, and unpretentious entertainment piece that often switches and plays with genres, mostly staying within over-the-top humor.
Setting a Hindi cinema-based show is challenging. Shows often end up unbearably superficial (*Call My Agent: Bollywood*) or merely a spoof of spoofs (Emraan Hashmi’s *Showtime*). What I loved first about *Bads of Bollywood* was that it isn’t about a tragic struggler—a term reserved only for aspiring actors. Nor does it dwell on the often-boring inner workings of the movie industry, which lay viewers generally don’t care about.
As for the drama of aspiring actors facing rejection and poverty, frankly, aren’t we all tired of hearing famous folks’ sob stories about eking out a living, skipping meals, or sleeping on pavements? They were chasing a personal dream, so why should it merit any special social purpose? Or acting as if the world owes aspiring actors more than it owes a broke telemarketer?
*Bads of Bollywood* opens with its protagonist, Lakshya Lalwani, already a star—albeit a debutant, from Delhi, stepping into Mumbai’s film world, a parallel many would draw to SRK himself. He visits a single-screen theater to catch his first film, only to exit the cinema with the public tearing his clothes off—a scene straight out of Hrithik Roshan’s life.
What follows is a story about how you never really make it. The struggles continue; only the stakes differ. Life takes over. The hero and heroine (Sahher Bambba) first meet at an actors’ roundtable (think Siddhant Chaturvedi), and then again at the duty-free shop of a domestic airport. The cast includes the hero’s jobless best friend (Raghav Juyal), mother (Mona Singh), uncle (Manoj Pahwa), and girlfriend’s father (Bobby Deol). Unlike caricatures in typical comedy, all actors play their parts seriously.
*Bads* unfolds like a mainstream, retro Bollywood picture in its own right—but with Bollywood as the setting. Bollywood itself is a culture: more liberal than the rest of India, less dull than any day job, full of professional daredevils without a Plan B, brimming with internal politics and external pressures.
The commentary feels a bit like stock market tips—it’s less about what’s said and more about who’s saying it. The creator of *Bads of Bollywood* is SRK’s son, Aryan Khan, 27, co-created by Bilal Siddiqi and Manav Chauhan. This adds a unique layer of meta-humor. Take the self-referencing scene—now surely a meme—where a narcotics sleuth nab a DJ (Neville Bharucha) for smoking up; the DJ protests, “But I’m not from Bollywood!” and is let go.
Aryan generously drops the “N-word” (nepotism) while taking potshots at his own father, calling him “Dhai Ghante ka Badshah!” For a first-timer, Aryan has filmed what he knows best, making this a sort of Zoya Akhtar-ian debut. Privilege, after all, is what you make of it.
Within *Bads of Bollywood*, you see the writer-director smartly weaving in top cameos only available to a superstar’s son: Aamir Khan, Arshad Warsi, Karan Johar, Emraan Hashmi, and more, fitting them like chess pieces into a proper plot. The resources are abundant, and this young creator is set free to play with all the toys, employing them effectively for movie-screen grandeur.
Left on its own terms, *Bads of Bollywood* has as much high-octane action as an average A-grade VFX actioner. Imagine *Fast & Furious* in Mumbai! Beyond the Lamborghinis, there’s a motorbike chase on the iconic Bandra-Worli Sea Link.
Did I expect this from a supposedly low-key parody on the film fraternity? Frankly, no. I also didn’t expect the *Game of Thrones*-like twist at the end, which cleverly reveals the asterisks in the series’ unusual title.
Like many viewers, that’s the last thing I loved about *Bads of Bollywood*. It’s that good!
https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/whats-so-bad-about-bollywood-23595505
