Aryan Khan’s Netflix debut is equal parts brilliant and brutal, a seven-episode bloodbath that spares no one, including himself
There’s something deliciously twisted about watching Aryan Khan recreate his father’s most humiliating moment, the 2012 Wankhede Stadium brawl with surgical precision and zero mercy. In “The Bastards of Bollywood,” the scene plays out beat-for-beat: security guards, flying fists, and Shah Rukh Khan’s son behind the camera, directing his own family’s trauma for Netflix gold. It’s meta-cinema at its most unhinged, and viewers can’t look away from the beautiful brutality of it all.
The seven-episode series have earned an impressive 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising it as “a messy, corny, cussing, gloriously meta circus that rips into the industry’s doglapan with cameos galore, critics vs stars, and no mercy honesty.” Yet beneath the accolades lies a troubling question: when does insider critique become privileged whining? Khan’s access grants him unprecedented authenticity, but it also makes every jab feel like a trust fund kid throwing stones from his glass mansion.
The most audacious moment arrives when Aryan tackles his own 2021 drug arrest head-on. A cop tells a character that people get “more famous” after going to lockup, immediately followed by a title card reading “Directed by Aryan Khan.” It’s simultaneously brilliant and cringe-worthy,a self-aware moment that transforms personal humiliation into artistic triumph, though some critics have noted the “clumsy, campy” execution doesn’t always land.
Khan doesn’t spare industry sacred cows either. The Kartik Aaryan-Dharma Productions feud gets the fictional treatment, with Karan Johar’s empire taking direct hits through the character of Aasmaan Singh. The show’s recreation of Yash Raj Films’ notorious three-film exclusive contracts reads like a love letter written in acid,affectionate enough to show intimate knowledge, caustic enough to leave permanent scars.
The series succeeds magnificently in moments of pure satirical genius, particularly when Bobby Deol and Shah Rukh Khan himself appear in scene-stealing cameos that blur reality and fiction. “Aryan Khan’s expert direction, crazy-n-entertaining moments, performances, shocking climax and starry cameos” create an undeniably entertaining spectacle. Yet the show stumbles when indulgence trumps insight, with “slightly uneven pacing” occasionally derailing its satirical momentum.
The round-table sequence, echoing Siddhant Chaturvedi’s real-life takedown of Ananya Panday’s privilege, captures the series’ central contradiction perfectly. Khan simultaneously critiques and embodies the nepotism he’s satirizing, creating cognitive dissonance that’s either masterfully intentional or accidentally profound. Even the legal trouble surrounding Ranbir Kapoor’s cameo scene proves that fictional bullets can draw real blood in Bollywood’s ecosystem.
“The Bastards of Bollywood” isn’t perfect,it’s something more dangerous. It’s honest. In an industry built on manufactured dreams and sanitized narratives, Khan has delivered a molotov cocktail disguised as entertainment. The show’s flaws don’t diminish its impact; they amplify it, creating a viewing experience that’s simultaneously uncomfortable and irresistible.
This isn’t just television, it’s therapeutic violence against the very system that created and nearly destroyed its creator. And in Bollywood’s current landscape of safe, committee-approved content, that makes it absolutely essential viewing
picture curtsey netflix and redchillies
About The Author
Such a good read! The emotions are flying through the screen. Loved it