What is Seth Rogen in *The Studio* (2025, Apple TV), if not Larry, in his own way? Consider the sixth episode of this sensational series, where Seth, playing the beta studio boss, finds himself stuck among serious doctors at a party. None of them can fathom the significance of the movies, but Seth is frickin’ obsessed! This obsession is something you’ll find in Bollywood as well.

I try not to mix my friends between these two worlds. One lot eventually gets bored through the damn evening.

Shah Rukh Khan’s (SRK) Red Chillies Entertainment, incidentally, produced a film that comes quite close to *Curb Your Enthusiasm* in its tenor. That film is *Kaamyaab* (2019), a sheer slice of showbiz low life, carried solely on the shoulders of the superb Sanjay Mishra, who plays a retired character actor known for one memorable line: “Enjoying life. Aur option kya hai!”

What about SRK’s Red Chillies series for Netflix, *The Bads of Bollywood* (wryly pronounced *Bads*), set in Mumbai’s movie and entertainment industry? Sure, there could be a hint of *Curb Your Enthusiasm*, even elements of *Entourage*, but more so it reflects the filminess of Farah Khan’s *Om Shanti Om*, combined with the edginess and empathy of Zoya Akhtar’s *Luck By Chance*.

Yet, *The Bads of Bollywood* stands tall as a full-on, fun take on films and filmies. It’s a completely silly, unpretentious, entertaining series that often switches and plays with genres, mostly staying within over-the-top humour.

Setting a Hindi cinema story isn’t easy, as you realize from other shows that feel unbearably superficial (*Call My Agent: Bollywood*) or just spoil spoofs (*Showtime*, starring Emraan Hashmi). But what I loved first about *The Bads of Bollywood* is that it’s not about a tragic struggler—a term usually reserved only for aspiring actors. Nor does it dwell on the boring inner workings of the movie industry, which no lay viewer really cares about.

And frankly, aren’t you tired of hearing famous folks’ sob stories about how they once eked out a living, skipping meals and sleeping on pavements? As if it was for a larger social purpose. They were chasing a personal dream—so what? Or hearing about their (fair or unfair) rejections as though the world owes any aspiring actor more than a broke telemarketer.

*The Bads of Bollywood* opens with its protagonist (Lakshya Lalwani), already a star—albeit a debutant—from Delhi, arriving in Mumbai, with a popular parallel to SRK himself. He steps into a single-screen theatre to watch his first film, only to exit as the public tears his clothes off! That’s straight out of Hrithik Roshan’s life.

What follows is a story of how you never really make it. The struggles continue, but the stakes differ. Life takes over.

The hero and heroine (Sahher Bambba) first meet at an actors roundtable (think Siddhant Chaturvedi), and next at the duty-free shop of a domestic airport! Between the hero, his jobless best friend (Raghav Juyal), mother (Mona Singh), uncle (Manoj Pahwa), and girlfriend’s father (Bobby Deol), all the actors take their parts seriously. Unlike typical caricatures in comedies, *The Bads* feels like a mainstream, retro Bollywood picture in its own right—with Bollywood as the vibrant, unique setting.

Bollywood is a culture of its own: more liberal than the rest of India, less dull than any day job, filled with professional daredevils who live without a Plan B, packed with its internal politics and external targeting.

The commentary in the series feels a bit like stock market tips—it’s not so much about what’s being said, but who’s saying it. The creator of *The Bads of Bollywood* is SRK’s son Aryan Khan, 27, co-created with Bilal Siddiqi and Manav Chauhan. This adds a unique layer of meta-humour to the show.

Take the self-referencing scene, now a meme, where a narcotics department sleuth nab a DJ (Neville Bharucha) for smoking up. The DJ protests he’s not from Bollywood and is let go! Aryan Khan generously drops the N-word—nepotism—while taking cheeky pot-shots at his own dad, the “Dhai Ghante ka Badshah!”

For a first-timer, Aryan has filmed what he knows best, making this something of a Zoya Akhtar-ian debut. As it is, privilege is what you make of it.

You’ll notice the writer-director smartly gathering top cameos, only available to a superstar’s son. Aamir Khan, Arshad Warsi, Karan Johar, Emraan Hashmi—each fits into the plot like chess pieces. The tools of trade are abundant. It’s a young kid set free to play with the toys, but employing them effectively for movie-screen splendour.

Left on its own, *The Bads of Bollywood* packs as much high-flying action as an average A-grade VFX action film. Imagine *Fast & Furious* in Mumbai! Apart from the Lamborghini, you watch a motorbike chase across the Bandra-Worli Sea Link!

Did I expect any of this from what seemed like a low-key parody series 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 behind the show’s unusual title.

Like many viewers, that twist was the last thing I loved about *The Bads of Bollywood*.

So good!
https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/whats-so-bad-about-bollywood-23595505