The world has had enough: James Bond goes brown in ‘Bait’

It’s about the towel. Anybody can look good in a bespoke tuxedo, but aspiring James Bonds traditionally have to audition by re-enacting the From Russia With Love scene where Sean Connery steps out of a hotel bathroom in his towel, finds a girl in his bed, and points his signature Walther PPK at her. That scene from the second 007 film has everything the franchise stands for—danger, sex, intrigue, Bond-girl and Bond gun—and Daniel Craig, the last man to play Bond, says he wants his audition tape destroyed.

The audition is considerably less hairy for Shah Latif, a wannabe Bond actor sipping apple juice from a crystal glass and spouting a sanctimonious monologue about the importance of Intelligence—a monologue understandably hard to deliver with a straight face. In the Amazon Prime comedy Bait, Latif is played by Riz Ahmed, the charismatic actor whose name was in the mix for Bond a decade or so ago—or so bookmakers had us believe.

Ahmed, who has also created the series, therefore has a unique vantage point on the hysteria that accompanies Bond-buzz, and gives us a show that questions not only how tall 007 needs to be but also whether the secret agent—a British imperialist fantasy created in the Cold War era—can be perceived as a good guy any longer. When Latif’s cousin Zulfikar says the words “on His Majesty’s secret service,” it immediately sounds wrong. Geopolitically speaking, we may have outgrown the ideal of a sharply dressed Englishman killing exotically named informants to help Britain and America carry on calling themselves Great and Great Again, respectively.

Not only is Shah Latif not James Bond, he’s not even Dev Patel. “Look how short he is,” says an Indian lady on the street. “Dev is tall, strong, handsome, our Gujarati hero.” Nobody takes Latif seriously, least of all his own family, making him crave the life-altering spotlight the role holds. The actor flubs his audition but is caught leaving the studio by paparazzi cameras, sparking speculation about a brown Bond, which, according to his agent, is “doing very well for the 18-34s,” forcing the producers to give him another shot. (Or is it merely in order that he die another day?)

“Craig Daniel mar gaya kya, saala?” asks Latif’s father Parvez, on hearing that his son might get the part. Cousin Zulfikar points out Latif’s height and his “horny meerkat face.” His mother, meanwhile, starts making up stories about how Latif, as a little boy, would speak of wanting a licence to kill. All she really cares about, though, is hosting the upcoming Eid celebrations. Yet it’s not all biryani and roses. The idea of a Muslim man taking on one of the whitest characters in filmdom doesn’t sit well with racist trolls, who fling a pig’s head through the window of the Latif household. It is the work of “terrorists but domestic ones,” Latif tells the cops, lowering his voice. “The white ones.”

Bait is interesting whenever talking about race. When Zulfikar—who wants to start a community-driven taxi service for Muslims—hears his cousin may be in the running for 007, he asks that the website be double-checked: “If it’s BBC, we can’t trust them.” The director at a British museum offhandedly jokes, “Anything borrowed has to be given back now, apparently.” When Latif meets another brown Bond in the running, played by (the fabulous) Himesh Patel, he is struck by his empathy for the community. “Are you Muslim?” Latif asks. The other guy pauses, then asks, “Aren’t we all, a little?”

The show is less exciting when racing against the clock with Latif trying to track down lost passports or running across London streets with a severed pig’s head. The plotting is convenient and relies on too many flashbacks for a tight series, six 25-minute episodes. By Amazon standards this is a passable bit of fun, but by British comedy standards, Bait isn’t sharp enough or savage enough.

The ensemble is a cracking one—highlighted by Guz Khan’s Zulfikar who goes from upright cock-salute to deadpan expression in an instant—but we’ve seen these actors in much better things. Khan’s own show Man Like Mobeen is a thing of beauty; Sheeba Chaddha, who plays spirited but troubled mum Tahira, is one of our strongest actors; Ritu Arya, who plays Latif’s ex-girlfriend, was unforgettable in Polite Society (JioHotstar); and Sajid Hasan, who steals many a scenes as Latif’s father, is none other than the irrepressible Dr Irrfan from the iconic Pakistani TV drama Dhoop Kinare (1987).

Ahmed’s own Four Lions is one of the finest satires this century, with four morons trying to enlist as mujahideen, a film so howlingly funny that I have to pause it repeatedly just to laugh.

Bait is great when people play off Ahmed, when his ex-girlfriend tells him he won’t like a kebab because “it’s chicken not lamb” or when Latif is eager to classify his father as a pervert so long as it’s “not in a ‘fundo’ way.” If anything, Bait suffers from—as one does not say about first-dates—too much Riz. He’s a talented actor with solid presence, but the show is indulgent and cheesy, often too infatuated with its own premise, and more time spent on the supporting players would have led to proper laughs. Still, it offers a view to a kill.

With Bond seeming increasingly passé, it might be more fun to beat up the hungover colonialist. I’d love to see a brown Bond villain. The man with the golden achkan.

Streaming tip of the week:

Last One Laughing UK (Amazon Prime) features many a great British comedian trying to make each other laugh—while not being allowed to. The second season includes returning champion Bob Mortimer, David Mitchell and Philomena Cunk herself, Diane Morgan. Delightful.

Raja Sen is a critic, screenwriter and columnist. His first play, a murder mystery called The Simla Affair, recently opened in Delhi. He is currently writing a horror film.