‘Bait’ (2026) Prime Video Series Review - Riz Ahmed's Audition Tape

In Bait, Riz Ahmed wears a very punchable loser face. As Shah Latif, he raises your blood pressure and exudes all the signs of being a fibster. I mean, he doesn't inform his ex-girlfriend, Yasmin (Ritu Arya), that he has found her purse. What he does instead is try to act like a supportive friend—to present himself as a mature, caring person. Thankfully, Yasmin has spent enough time with Shah to distinguish between his real and fake self. She, you see, almost immediately sniffs out his bullshit. Then again, Shah isn't a very convincing liar either. He lets his own facade slip by saying "passports" and not "passport." Only someone aware of the contents of the purse would know that Yasmin is carrying more than one passport. Gosh, Shah is such a bad actor.

And in Bait, that's the main joke. Shah, indeed, is an actor. He wants to be a well-known, well-celebrated actor. But he has trouble memorizing his lines, so at the show's beginning, he screws up a major audition. What role does he audition for? Well, to be the new James Bond. The director, though, gets fed up with Shah's inability to go through a scene without forgetting his dialogue, so he's rejected. Shah, however, isn't just an amateur; he's also a poser. If he can't get what he wants, he will act as if he has already gotten the object of his desire. And so he deliberately walks out of the studio through the front gate—which he's instructed not to do—allowing a paparazzo to photograph him in order to start a rumor that he might be the new Bond.

Mission successful! Articles with Shah's pictures pop up online, giving rise to excited, celebratory screams from his family members. Look at Shah—he's almost surprised that the trick he pulled off actually worked. But now he has to calm his family down by saying that he just gave an audition, and at the same time, he has to somehow get the role of his lifetime. What's more, Shah also has to deal with online trolls who write racist comments and deal with the security of his residence when someone throws the head of a pig into his house. Sadly, Shah is not very emotionally competent. You need to have a thick skin if you are in show business, but Shah's skin is as thin as paper. The trolls get to him, the slight criticisms—like the one related to his height—get to him, the news articles get to him, and even that pig's head gets to him. The character's mental space is very, very fragile. It's easy to disturb his composure.

Why is Shah like this? As a kid, he was targeted by racist bullies. As an aspiring actor, he's constantly undermined by strangers who mistake him for Dev Patel and ask him to say lines from Slumdog Millionaire. The London that Bait presents is both hostile toward Muslims, who are referred to as "Pakis," and welcoming toward them. The series captures both the vibrancy and the darkness of its setting to make it feel lived-in and real. All that's fine, but what about Shah? In a dream sequence, his family is accused of weighing him down. His mother, Tahira (Sheeba Chaddha), is even blamed for forcing her own ambitions on her son. How much of it is real and how much of it is fiction? How much of it is Shah's sick fantasy, and how much of it stems from real experience? Bait never provides a clear explanation. Shah's acting dreams come across as his own, and his family never orders him around. It's Shah who, in fact, is shown as a self-centered prick with a penchant for always shooting himself in the foot.

If Shah's family has any problem, it's that the mother refrains from confronting the truth about her son. She deludes herself into thinking that all is well. A neighbor/rival (Soni Razdan) even assures Tahira that nowadays it's okay to take an appointment with a mental health professional. But Bait itself never approaches—or hears from—such a professional. It fixes Shah by providing him with a fuller picture of a memory, leading to an apology at an airport. This basically throws away any other explanations you might have picked up regarding Shah's mental problems. That flashback where a young Shah is bullied by some kids? It's simply reduced to a plot point that opens the door for the climax. Those racist comments on social media and the newspaper articles? They merely give Shah the opportunity to run around London like a lunatic who needs urgent help, offering Ahmed the chance to set up a display of his skills as an actor. The character's interactions and experiences—both past and present—are merely hung on the screen like eccentric window dressings meant to hold your attention.

Bait is more interested in dropping half-baked hints and intriguing bits and pieces of character-related information instead of fleshing out its ideas and implications. The six 20-25-minute-long episodes are sort of (anti)comedy set pieces that want to make statements whose power is more understood in generalized terms than felt with subjective depth. Bait challenges what it means to "look British" and has things to say about MI5 and immigrants in a foreign land, but everything, in the end, is boxed and packaged into a series of colorful events that, instead of developing traits, themes, and characters, place more emphasis on the quirks of Shah and, by extension, Ahmed's actorly talents. The series, then, becomes an effective audition tape for casting directors seeking the next Bond. "Stop searching," Bait seems to declare. "Just hire Riz Ahmed—he can be the next 007."

Final Score- [5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times
Note: All 6 episodes are screened for this review.
Premiere Date: March 25, 2026, on Prime Video