Fan

Just when many of us started to think Mr. Shah Rukh Khan is gradually loosing his substance as an actor, he does a Comeback; a comeback with his unmatched acting abilities. And he picked up the right script to do it. After directing 3 youth-appealing romantic films, director Maneesh Sharma indeed gave Mr. Khan that scope to be self-indulged in the film which celebrates Khan's previous masterpieces. Being well supported by the supporting characters, KING KHAN has delivered his one of the best performances. It can never be easy to pull off double roles on screen but the way he maintained the balance between the two contradictory characters of Superstar Aryan Khanna & his hardcore fan Gaurav Chandna, it deserves a lot of appreciation. Despite being consisted of a great script, FAN is not deprived of loopholes. Climax seemed heart- rending but a bit unconvincing & irrational. But, the screenplay keeps the adrenaline pumping for most of the scenes in the movie. To be honest, the film gave few goosebumps & emotional touch at times as a SRK fanatic. The Background Music,Dialogues,Cinematography etc. are perfectly suited with the movie. The idea of a song-less film added more taste to the delicious dish. On a nutshell, Its surely a rejoice for celebrating the whole idea of FANaticism. Not only for the admirers of SRK but the movie 'FAN' is also a treat for every fanatic person,one who devoted to a particular persona from any field. It seemed good as a film but great as a SRK fan. And Mr. Khan aces his on-screen dual characters with ease. Thank You Shah Rukh Khan for gifting a worth-cherishing film after a long time.

Fan review :

There's something called as the "Curse of the second half"- a phenomenon where a film is simply outstanding in the first half raising your expectations to a pinnacle only to dash them to abysmal lows after the interval. It's more prevalent in bollywood than hollywood as those guys avoid intermission point even for their lengthy movies. Fan - SRK's latest wannabe blockbuster suffers badly from the second half curse syndrome.

The film starts like a home video of SRK's past achievements - montage of his films, awards, interviews etc. SRK is called Aryan Khanna - an aging superstar on a career downslide who still has enough crazy fans to cause a minor stampede outside his home (exteriors of Mannat). So basically, Aryan Khanna is SRK. His doppelganger fan is dilliwala Gaurav Chandna (SRK again with prosthetics) who considers him God and mimics him to win the "Kaloney wala competition" every year.

Encouraged by his parents (Deepika Amin- Yogendra Tiku, both adorable), Gaurav travels ticketless to Mumbai to meet Aryan, stays in the same motel as the superstar had during his struggling days and seeks only 5 minutes from him. He does get the opportunity but this meeting with Aryan leaves Gaurav totally disillusioned and angry. It's a very interesting scene which turns the graph of the film completely and director Maneesh Sharma nails it till here. It's interval time.

Next, Gaurav travels to London, creates a ruckus at Madame Tussauds and gets Aryan (who's shooting in the city) behind bars for his act. More, Gaurav infiltrates a wedding ceremony where Aryan is performing and gets him humiliated in front of all and sundry. Truly, it's by this point that the proceedings start looking fake and unreal. While in India, no one mistakes Gaurav to be Aryan but the moment he lands abroad, everyone assumes he's the superstar. Howzzat!! Also, Gaurav seems to know the entire work schedule of Aryan right to the minutest of details. Highly unlikely to happen!!

It's these glaring cinematic liberties which rob the second hour of its grit and realism. Admittedly, the two chase sequences are well choreographed and Aryan's advice to Gaurav in the violent climax highlights the pertinent point that a superstar should only serve as an inspiration for individual hard work and not as a blind obsession. Stars are also ordinary humans like us. In fact, Aryan Khanna is considerably humanised throughout by making him bear with a rude firangi cop or getting reprimanded by a rich businessman for arriving late at a performance.

Performance wise, the film belongs to SRK and he makes both Gaurav as well as Aryan memorable. In a welcome departure from his repetitive acts witnesed in his recent outings, SRK has actually "acted" after quite some time. No spreading of arms to demonstrate love, no silly banter bordering on hamming - Fan definitely ranks amongst SRK's better performances in recent times though it's nowhere close to the benchmark he's set for himself in the past - "Baazigar" (1993), "Darr"(1993), "Swades" (2004) or "Chak De India" (2007).

Of the supporting cast, only Shriya Pilgaonkar leaves a mark in her small role. There are no songs in the film; even the popular "Jabraa Fan" number is missing. Editing by Namrata Rao could have been tighter in the second half. Ditto for Habib Faisal's sagging screenplay.

All said and endured, Fan is an average fare but SRK - the actor elevates it to a cut above the commonplace. His fans will be happy for sure; those who aren't will also not mind.

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

I was 9 years old when Pardes and Dil Se flopped, every critic, every layman said, he is finished, and then he made a stellar comeback with Devdas. Chennai express, HNY, Dilwale all were commercially successful but SRK was losing his fan base as these films made little justice to his talent and stature. Again articles started floating through out social and print media"Is SRK's career over???". The answer was out on 15th April when FAN hit the screens. SRK has made a comeback and how. "FAN" by all means is a content driven theme, but make no mistake FAN is a average film but it is a brave film. You laugh with Gaurav, you cry with Gaurav, your heart melts when he says"Rehn de, tu nahin samjhega". Fan is an exhibition of acting and skills displayed by SRK or should we say the "Comeback Kid". They say he is stereotyped, they say he doesn't experiment, who would have had the courage to do a RA-One, though not a great film but at least an experiment at something better. No Doubt FAN was a brave move and one that has paid off. Only SRK and only SRK could have acted in a film like FAN, after all nobody loves SRK ore than himself. With few interesting projects up his sleeve fan could just be the comeback vehicle SRK was looking for. Now coming to his performance, SRK is simply brilliant in both the characters played by him, he is contagious as Gaurav and everyone could find a bit of themselves in him. He was a delight on screen, absolute magic. More often than not when SRK plays himself he tends to overdo it but this time as ARyan Khanna he got it just right, that look, that controlled aggression, that Dilliwala toughness, every thing was evident. As some body said "Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom", the rock bottom was landed on SRK but he has come back with a stunner. People who still don't understand the real SRK or the actor in him --"Rehn de, tu nahin samjhega"

After a long time, finally a SRK movie that propelled me to take some time out and write up a post.

To begin with, FAN, by no means is a perfect and flawless movie (more on that later), but what the movie has successfully achieved is to unearth the untapped ACTOR out from the catacombs of mediocrity that has thus hindered the transition of THE STAR to an ACTOR.

Director Maneesh Sharma, who also claims to be a big SRK fan himself, surely knows that the general audience wants to see more than rhythmic extension of arms from the MAN who once gave extremely nuanced and balanced portrayals in Swades and CDI. And hereby comes the movie FAN which can be any actor's dream role. From an uncouth and lovable Gaurav Chandana to a shrewd, realistic Aryan Khanna, it was hard to imagine that the same actor did play both the characters and that too with so much attention to detail. There are quite a few scenes that leaves you in awe of the exemplary display of Acting and makes you wonder "where was this SRK hiding for so long?" Kudos to the Director for taking this bold step of making the movie without any songs, heroines or as a matter of fact any comic scenes as well. It is just one man show from beginning to end laced with some superlative performance.

Now coming to the flip side, at least for me, are the 3 exceptionally well designed and seemingly never-ending chase sequences which somewhat dilutes the impact. But again I see others really praising those sequences (so it depends on the taste I assume). Another glaringly noticeable point is the contrastingly different approaches to handle the 1st and 2nd halves. In the first half, the makers tried to keep the narrative as much close to reality as possible but in the 2nd half, Maneesh Sharma played it to the gallery where logic takes a backseat, but the sequences concerned are certainly thrilling and creepy enough to keep you glued to your seats.

Lastly the climax which might receive extreme opinions, but I personally loved the ending.

To conclude, this is not one of the best performance of SRK, rather his career best performance. And the movie might not earn big bucks because of its dark, grim and creepy undertones but will surely earn the love of moviegoers.

Shah Rukh Khan already has many roles under his belt, but this one might just surpass them all, playing as Aryan a super star like his own real life persona, and his own biggest fans Chandna. It's one of the performances that resonates in personal level, there are times that audience would believe he's two different persons.

Chandna is a fan highly obsessed with his star Aryan, almost down to a fault. This may seem like harmless attachment, but after a certain incident, the fondness becomes volatile and it turns him against his own idol. The playful theme can be deceptively bizarre, but with more social media outreach, fan might just think they are actually connected to random stranger. It's shown here at its most extreme, though might be slightly exaggerated.

Both setting and make-up enable SRK to deliver crisp and flashy scenes. The sight of London and Dubrovnik make for great scenery even when he simply traverses them, but the zenith is the performance as two characters side by side. The make-up does a good job on creating highly different visages, the rest is sheer acting prowess. Some of the action scenes are admittedly awkward, it's mostly a thriller but there are a few overly long chase sequences perhaps added just for the sake of more action.

"Fan" is a tribute to one of the greatest actors in Bollywood. The acting is immensely appreciated whether one is a fan of Bollywood or not.