POPCORN REVIEWSS

Written by Aryan Khan, Bilal Siddiqui and Manav Chauhan, The Ba***ds Of Bollywood delves in two layers. The top layer is reserved for the origin story of Aasmaan in the industry who is fresh off the oven with a surprise hit film Revolver under a legacy production house Sodawallah Productions headed by the snobby honcho Freddie Sodawallah (Manish Chaudhari), who in turn gaslights Aasmaan into signing a 3-film contract even when the latter is about to sign a Karan Johar film. It is interesting how Karan Johar is impressed with the bratty arrogance of Aasmaan at a Newcomer’s Round Table (borrowed directly from the Ananya Panday and Siddharth Chaturvedi (infamous) episode with Rajeev Masand), that coaxes him to cast him opposite the very person who was at the receiving line of his statement – Karishma (Sahher Bambba), who is the daughter of yesteryear’s superstar Ajay Talvar (Bobby Deol) who is against this signing, almost signalling a power dynamics of sorts mixed with jealousy.

The character dynamics play their part too – Freddie wants Ajay to play a role in the sequel of a film called Sailaab to save his production house, elsewhere, Karishma and Aasmaan get in close proximity to each other, even as many celebrity cameos grace the show with their presence. Amidst the crowd includes Aasmaan entourage – Sanya (Anya Singh) who is his manager, his left-hand mainstay Parvaiz (a hilarious Raghav Juyal), his uncle Avtar (Manoj Pahwa) struggling in the industry for years, his mother Neeta (Mona Singh) who was once a background dancer only to withdraw from the industry after woefully failing, and his ever-supporting father Rajat (Vijayant Kohli) who is his silent cheer-leader. Elsewhere you have Jaraj (Rajat Bedi) playing a meta-version of himself in a character that was distanced from the industry after his work dried up. He also gets to perform a 3-minute Koi Mil Gaya (2003) montage of his own character, that adds to the metaness of the narrative, much like most characters here.

The fluff doesn’t end there, and neither do the meta-references, something that adds to the meta-relatability of the show. So you have Emraan Hashmi – the God Of Kissing, doubling up hilariously as an intimacy coordinator with the fan-boy in Parvaiz going ‘Tamalli Mahaa’, a Salman Khan cameo on the back of his words ‘Bullsh*t party’, a Shahrukh Khan cameo that features him being flustered when a character mistakes him for Badshah (the singer) and utters ‘Ghante Ka Badshah’.

The looney moments of meta-ness continue even with the likes of Rajkummar Rao and Arjun Kapoor at an awards night who double up in their ‘Akshay Kumar-Abhishek Bachchan’ avatars from Om Shanti Om (2007), or even an Aamir Khan and SS Rajamouli cameo who seem like discussing work animatedly from a distance whereas the discussion was about Vada Pav and Idli-Sambhar. Even a tactfully curated cameo of Maheep Kapoor telling her frowning daughter Shanaya Kapoor – ‘Don’t Be Like Aryan’. Or my favourite – a Bollywood party being raided by a Sameer-Wankhede look-alike with the words – ‘Bollywood is full of druggies’, indeed made for a hilarious watch (Aryan absolutely cooked Wankhede here, so much so that he may have left the stadium too😂)! It is the perfect blend of self-aware brain rot humour that you would see in a Farah Khan film or even a Himesh Reshammiya film (Badass Ravikumar Bruhhhh)!

And yet beneath the layers of fluff, there is a searing satire in play that exposes the dark realities of the industry. It is almost like a middle-finger commentary to the practices ably masked and blended in a playful tone of the show. In a scene, you see Kjo playing to his nepo-media image by telling Aasmaan – Don’t mess with the movie mafia’. Or even a random cop character saying that people become more famous after going to jail. Or even a random drinking session between a yesteryear’s producer boasting on how girls would line outside his bedroom in what was yesteryear’s ‘Me Too’ movement. Or a character rampantly m*turbating in bed while watching porn in VR and exclaiming – I hate these servants. Or a gangster who has previously shot a man dead for frequently uttering his name Gafoor, kidnaps Aasmaan only to hand over a script to him written by his sister. Or even the Aryan Khan classic – featuring a character uttering the words ‘Say No To Drugs’ before the slide of ‘Directed By Aryan Khan’ appears. The writing is sharp and satirical while absolutely knocking it out of the park.

You almost get a “Gully Boy coded” MC Sher-Murad vibe between Aasmaan and Parvaiz, so much so that their dynamic cuts through the K3G sequence of two ‘brothers’ lighting the funeral pyre. There is also a ‘Luck By Chance’ coded romance brewing between Aasmaan and Karishma, that forms the fundamental building blocks of the drama. And so, when you eventually get to the finale, the drama absolutely turns on its head making most of the drama relevant. It is a Hitchcockian twist in that regard with a hint of Park Chan Wook and David Lynch in the mix that makes the entire drama up until then irrelevant.

And this actually got me thinking, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made, something that was in line with the title of the show. It automatically added humour and purpose to the proceedings while also justifying some of the antics of the characters. As Akshay Kumar from Ajnabee (2001) would say ‘Everything Is Planned’, or even Shahrukh Khan from Baazigar (1993) who would say ‘Ab Sailaab Aayega’ (interesting, the connecting tissue was the film Sailaab on the show). It is genius writing that is extremely self-aware and lands seamlessly.