Friday, April 15, 2016

Fan



Rating : 6 /10
Release Date : 15th April, 2016
Time : 143 minutes
Director, Writer : Maneesh Sharma; Music : Vishal-Shekhar (songs), Andrea Guerra (background score)
Starring : Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Amin, Yogendra Tiku, Sayani Gupta




A young boy (Gaurav) is obsessed with Shahrukh Khan, the star (named Aryan in the movie), and coincidentally looks like him too. In fact the high point of his life is winning the local star look-alike show. And then, on SRK’s birthday, he decides to make the trip to Mumbai and meet his idol – with dreams of handing him the trophy he won, hugging him etc. Things don’t go to plan (understatement of the century) and when he returns from Mumbai, he decides to make the star pay – especially as he was found wanting on one of his favourite sign off lines – ‘I am what I am because of my fans, if the fans aren’t there, I am nobody’.



It’s a fascinating premise – who in India doesn’t recognize obsession after all, and what if that infatuation turns sour - and it’s fabulously enacted by Shahrukh, but thanks to two bloated chase sequences and an end that goes nowhere, it pulls you down. There is a strong message somewhere – but it’s lost in all the filmy touches and several implausible moments.



Our boy has the cutest, most supportive parents imaginable – and his normal life pretty much revolves around his idol. Several touching scenes – the imaginary conversations in our head, the wall to ceiling posters, the fighting with others for our star – we would recognize these traits, after all, we all have idolized someone at some point. And, we’ve all felt at some time or the other, that our stars have let us down, they sometimes let success and adulation get to their head, become arrogant, forget why, who made them big in the first place. And in this film, the star’s biggest fan, decides to teach him a lesson.


SRK is very good, after a long while. It’s been ages since he did a film with some meat, substance and this couldn’t have been an easy project to say ‘Yes’ to – so kudos to him for agreeing to it, making it come alive with a great performance. Unfortunately, at script level, there were too many inconsistencies – events happen that have a close to zero chance happening in real life – and the end just didn’t connect. Wasn’t something else possible here ?


As a total aside - it was nice to see Dubrovnik, a lovely, quiet Croatian coastal town feature in a Hindi film – Star Wars VIII, Game of Thrones have also been shot here, quite extensively too.


Obsessions, especially those not our own, don’t make for easy viewing, especially on the big screen. Several moments when you wish the character didn’t do what they did, you cringe, face-palm, which ensures that the repeat viewing potential of this movie is nil. But then, as our star obsessed fan points out several times – what they do isn't done or possible for others to understand. And at the end, who are we to judge ?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fan-tastico :)

Bindu Cherungath said...

Luved reading ur review...

Apurv Nagpal said...

Thanks so much, Bindu !

Anonymous said...

Wanderlust, just by viewing a scene, you can make out in which part of the world it was shot at !

Anonymous said...

I suppose the fact of the matter is that in Bollywood you get to learn to take the rough with the smooth and after you've lived there for a time nothing rattles you...

Anonymous said...

Love is all that counts..

Anonymous said...

Ah, Bollywood... There's the heartache of the exile. There's the yearning to be away from it all. There's the dull despair of living the shallow, glittering life of this tinsel town where tragedy lies hid behind a thousand false smiles... Bright city of sorrows, where fame deceives and temptation lurks, where souls are shrivelled in the furnace of desire, whose streets are bathed with the shamed tears of betrayed lovers...(all of 24...she had no reason to take her own life.. Pratyusha Banerjee...and so many more like her...) .... Bollywood home of mean glories and spangled wretchedness, where the deathless fire burns for the outspread wings of the guileless moth and beauty is broken on sin's cruel wheel... Everybody's had the experience at one time vor another of waking up after a nightmare in which they were chased by leopards or chewed by cannibals or some such thing and drawing a deep breath and saying to themselves 'Phew! It was only a dream'... Positively bizarre... Then reality dawns and one realizes that what I really had been kidding myself was a dream had been no dream at all...

Sandeep Lakhina said...

Super review. Echoes my thought gets exactly. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half. And then of course it white falls apart In the second. SRKs performance was awesome after many years.

Anonymous said...

Showing on Sony... quite a James Bond kind of chase...

Anonymous said...

The Fan has been depicted as a complete psychotic character...

Anonymous said...

Jo mazaa apni pehchaan bana ke jeene mei hai, wo kisse ki parchhaee ban ke jeene mei nahi... A dialogue from the movie...

Anonymous said...

How can you love and then hate the same person whom you have idolized your entire life...

Anonymous said...

How can you love and then hate the same person whom you have idolized your entire life... didn't like the plot of the film..

Anonymous said...

Platonic Ideal of love...is it just a myth ?

Anonymous said...

Historic European metropolis...with the nineteenth century buildings, the medieval architecture with rustic tranquility... To visit the national museums and art centres...to find masterpieces by great artists... Amazing atmosphere in these Bohemian European cultural spots... To visit the world heritage sites...