Fan Review - Fan will delight you

Ameet Bhuvan

Let’s breathe a collective sigh of relief and say a prayer to the God almighty, for here is a Shah Rukh Khan movie that is good. Finally!

Gaurav is a look alike fan of Aryan, who lives breathes sleeps eats the super star. Calling himself junior Aryan, living in a room whose walls are filled with the super stars pictures and cut outs, Gaurav is the kind of fan who would even kill for Aryan. So hell hath no fury like a fan scorned when the superstar manages to piss him off by not meeting him for five minutes. Tables turn, chases begin and the film gets into a full on action thriller mode.

As Aryan Khanna, SRK is everything a super star can be - polished, suave, charismatic, angry and irritated. SRK gets into his own shoes brilliantly and manages to, especially towards the end, emphasise that a super star too is a human being with family and responsibilities and a right to express and feel emotions.

It is however as Gaurav that the SRK shines, and how. It has been a while since the actor showed himself on screen. Behind those prosthetics we get glimpses of the brilliance SRK displayed in Darr and Bazzigar.

What lets him down though is the vanilla treatment Gaurav is given in the writing of the character. Gaurvav’s anger and hatred is never sinister enough, his revenge never dangerous enough. His cutesy-ness carries through even when he grips a gun to shoot at his “senior” super star.  Gaurav is treated with kid gloves both by the director and the writer, preventing Fan from becoming a great film. Then there are liberties taken without logic, like what exactly was Gaurav doing in London and how did he manage resources, the weird reason why police is not involved in any point of the chase in the story- but then again, one shouldn’t forget this is a YRF movie at the end of the day.

That does not go to say Fan isn’t fun. The first half especially, is an ode to every Bollywood fan, who has spent years idolizing his or her matinee idol. The adulation, the madness the frenzy, if you have loved singing along to blockbuster songs, written love letters with lyrics of Hindi film songs, if you have every cut out a picture of your favourite film star from library magazines, Fan will leave you moist eyed.

Verdict: Go for it.

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