The Ba***ds Of Bollywood Review | Aryan Khan’s Satire On Industry Glitz Bursts With Masala And Chaos

Aryan Khan’s directorial debut, The Ba***ds of Bollywood, arrives with the swagger of a show that knows it’s taking on one of India’s most gossip-fuelled industries. Produced by Red Chillies Entertainment and streaming on Netflix, the series is pitched as a satirical action comedy about an outsider trying to make it big in an industry that thrives on chaos, privilege, and the politics of access. If the first episode is any indication, Khan has chosen not to dip a cautious toe into the waters, but to dive headlong into the most notorious debates and inside jokes of Bollywood. The result is a high-energy, meta-driven opening hour that’s equal parts fun and exhausting. It is made for those who keep up with the Bollywood gossip brigade more than their family Whatsapp group dramas. This is a cameo-crammed first episode that takes aim at privilege and politics, but the satire mostly stays surface-level.

The episode begins with a gruesome stunt accident on set, followed by the entry of Lakshya Lalwani as Aasmaan Singh, a bright-eyed newcomer who steps in, executes the dangerous stunt with confidence, and finds himself catapulted into stardom with a 100-crore blockbuster. But success in Bollywood, as the show reminds us, is often cosmetic. Aasmaan is still living with his uncle, Avtaar Singh (a delightful Manoj Pahwa), a backup singer who never quite cracked the industry. His parents—Rajat (Vijayant Kohli) and Neeta (Mona Singh), the latter a former backup dancer with decades of thankless work behind her—arrive to bask in his newfound glory at a success party. Meanwhile, Aasmaan’s entourage includes his loyal best friend Parvaiz (Raghav Juyal), and his pragmatic manager Sanya (Anya Singh), who is repeatedly sidelined, despite being the only voice of reason in the room.

From here, the episode spins into a whirlwind of cameos, caricatures, and controversies. Karan Johar gleefully plays a nastier version of himself, Ranveer Singh shows up on crutches, and Bobby Deol doubles up as both megastar Ajay Talwar and himself in a yet-to-be-seen cameo. The industry satire is at its sharpest in moments like the newcomer’s roundtable, where Aasmaan attacks Ajay Talwar’s daughter Karishma (Sahher Bambba) for her privilege—a scene that directly mirrors Siddhant Chaturvedi’s real-life mic-drop response to Ananya Panday about the outsider-insider struggle.

Khan doesn’t stop there. He throws in a parody of his own very public scandal, with a Sameer Wankhede look-alike swooping in to arrest another greenhorn actor, Vastav Shrivastava, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during a drug bust. Manish Chaudhari as Freddy Sodawallah, the overbearing producer, channels a mash-up of Bollywood moguls, most obviously Aditya Chopra. Freddy coerces Aasmaan into an exclusive three-film deal, a pointed nod to YRF’s reputation for locking talent into exclusivity.

If the writing sounds jam-packed, that’s because it is. The first episode is edited at a breakneck pace, constantly cutting between industry satire, personal drama, and blink-and-miss in-jokes. It’s clever in parts—the industry loves nothing more than watching itself in a mirror, even a slightly cracked one—but it risks alienating viewers who aren’t clued in on gossip cycles or famous spats. To the uninitiated, the parade of caricatures might feel like a confusing blur.

Performance-wise, Lalwani holds his own as the earnest Aasmaan Singh, though the writing hasn’t yet carved him out as more than a generic outsider-hero archetype. His chemistry with Raghav Juyal’s Parvaiz hints at a more layered friendship, but the dynamic is undercooked so far. Anya Singh’s Sanya could easily have been the grounding force of the show, but she’s sidelined in ways that feel like oversight. Bobby Deol’s Ajay Talwar is surprisingly restrained, given the larger-than-life world the show is sketching. For a supposed “biggest superstar,” he comes across as mostly genial with undercurrents of someone more egotistical.

The direction, however, shows confidence for a debutant. Khan clearly knows the textures of Bollywood well enough—he is also an insider who is protected from any potential fallouts—to parody them, from the glitzy parties to the predatory contracts, and he stages the chaos with flair. What he doesn’t quite manage yet is tonal balance. The satire often feels superficial, settling for exaggerated gags rather than pushing deeper into the hypocrisies and structural inequities it gestures toward.

That said, as the first episode, it does its job. The cameos grab attention and the pace rarely lets up. If the next episodes slow down long enough to flesh out the characters, deepen the outsider-insider commentary, and balance the spectacle with substance, The Ba***ds of Bollywood could mature into something genuinely sharp. If not, it risks becoming yet another glittery masala romp that mistakes self-awareness for self-critique. For now, the debut is an entertaining ride—one that insiders and outsiders will gleefully eat up, and everyone else will watch to see just how far Khan dares to push the envelope.