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‘Bait’ Review: Bond. Shahjehan Bond.
Riz Ahmed imagines the dark side of being a 007 candidate (a position he knows something about) in his Prime Video comedy series.
Your name has come up as a possible James Bond, but you have always been down the list, behind Idris Elba then and Callum Turner now. What could you do to improve your chances? How about writing and starring in a satirical mini-series about an actor who flubs his audition to be the next James Bond but finds himself touted as a favorite anyway? It’s what they call manifesting, right?
That would be the cynical view to take of “Bait,” written by and starring the gifted British actor Riz Ahmed, which premieres Wednesday on Amazon Prime Video. In reality, though, it’s more a case of Ahmed’s respectfully taking himself out of contention. The Bond producers would not want audiences to have Ahmed’s character — a paranoid, hallucinating basketcase who carries on a dialogue with a severed pig’s head — in the back of their minds while watching the next 007. No matter how good Ahmed looks in a dinner jacket.
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Bait review – Riz Ahmed’s comedy is petty, narcissistic … and excellent
Part autobiography, part industry satire, this hilarious show boasts dazzling dialogue and ace cameos. But surely Ahmed has better things to do than play James Bond?
If I were Riz Ahmed, I would be very up myself too. In the two decades since his screen career began, the actor has won Oscars and Baftas; been cast in a Star Wars film and a Charli xcx video; inspired a metric for Muslim on-screen representation (the Riz Test) and crafted a body of work comprising performances which are both individually excellent and collectively meaningful.
He has done so by combining talent with an unusual willingness to engage with the wider context of what it means to be a brown British person on 21st-century planet Earth. I imagine a certain amount of ego is also necessary to power the whole enterprise. And if so, what of it?
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