We all have been waiting for this. Fans, non-fans, the closet fans and everyone who watches Bollywood movies have been waiting for SRK to make a film and not blow up another marketing puff in front of them. Looks like he finally listened to everyone. When will Shahrukh not make masala movies ? When will he work with actual directors ? When do we see a movie where he acts?
Fan is the answer to all those questions. It’s Shah Rukh Khan all the way. And no one else. Fan isn’t FANtastic but Shahrukh will make you believe it is. Remove him, and you have just another story.
There is a fine line between being a fan and crossing it to being obsessed. Fan is about one such fan whose life is a result of this obsession.
Maneesh Sharma, who has directed “Band Baaja Baraat”, “Ladies Vs Ricky Behl” and “Shudh Desi Romance”, has a knack of bringing out the typical Dilli wala characters live onto the screen, is at the helm here. His crisp storytelling and holding the plot to not move out of place has been his biggest achievement. Apart from making sure he uses SRK in evey possible way.
Fan is all about SRK. I’m pretty sure that people will be raving about the character of Gaurav played by Shahrukh, which undoubtedly everyone should, but it is playing the superstar that he is flawless too. The subtle arrogance of a star, the frustration of too many expectations and anger if things don’t go his way. Aryan Khanna is good at what he does and doesn’t shy away from feeling proud of what he has acheived.
The best part about Fan is, it never treats the hysterical Gaurav as the villain and neither it turns the superstar Aryan Khanna as the hero/victim. Maneesh loves to play with gray hinges and Fan helps him put forth that idea of reality through the story lens. Definitely, no one could have done it better than the superstar himself.
Fan isn’t bereft of plot-holes though. The first half, with its fast pace and sleek story unfolding, doesn’t give that away but the second half initially exposes the evenly spread out flaws. The extremities of how fans and media treats you doesn’t accurately match up to reality and follow a similar trajectory of Bollywood drama, and neither does a fan stuck in the 90’s in the year 2015. Perhaps it was easier for Maneesh for this transition of Gaurav from an obsessed fan to someone out there to destroy the star.
Ignoring the evident flaws is not very difficult, and as soon as the amazing chase sequences follow, you’ll soon be lost into “What would Gaurav do next?”.
And O.M.G, the action! Frankly, I wasn’t expecting an action of this sort and I was blown away by what I saw. There are 3 amazingly done Action sequences which propells the movie to another level. I was wondering who is the Action Director of Fan ?
It is Oh Se Young, who has previously also acted as action director for Avengers 2! Undoubtedly, the action here was bound to be awesome.
This is where I usually add inferences to the rest of the cast, but in this Double SRK bonanza, there’s hardly anyone who made a lasting impact. Such is the aura of Khan in Fan. There is Sayani Gupta as Arya Khanna’s PR, Shreya Padgaonkar as Gaurav’s one-sided love interest, Yogendra Tiku and Deepika Amin as Gaurav’s parents, who’ve helped the plot develop further.
The reason you should watch Fan, apart from the excellent work by SRK, is that it leaves you with a thought. The film ends with Gaurav saying, “Rehnde yaar, tu nai samjhega”, but you will.
I’m going with 3/5 for Maneesh Sharma’s Fan.
Fan isn’t FANtastic but Shahrukh will make you believe it is.