Rating 2.5/5

‘Fan bass Fan Hota hai, lekin tum nahi samjhoge’, the key dialogue of the film is enough for the director and writer to realise that fans are not made but earned. A Film based on the violent collision between a superstar and a super fan lacks the intimacy which usually is the base of such kind of relationship.

Twenty-five-year-old, Gaurav Chanana (Shahrukh Khan), is a super fan of film star Aryan Khanna (Shahrukh Khan), who is almost a clone of his favourite super star. Year after year he wins a best actor trophy by mimicking Aaryan in an annual local acting competition, thus he is known as Junior Aryan Khanna in his locality.

This year he decides to visit Mumbai to meet his favourite star on his upcoming birthday. Following the footsteps of Aaryan, Gaurav travels in the same train without a ticket and stays in the same hotel, in the same room, where Aaryan has stayed when he landed in Mumbai as a struggler. 

His only ambition in life is just to dedicate his trophy to Aaryan and spend five minutes with him. With dreamy eyes on Aaryan’s birthday when he reaches at the huge gate of Aaryan’s Bungalow, his dreams shatter when he faces the reality. When, by hook, he fails to meet his favourite super star he tries a crooked way, which angers Aaryan and to teach him a lesson he puts Gaurav in a traumatic situation.

Hurt Gaurav decides to teach him lesson to make him realize that without fans stars are nothing. How he goes beyond expectations to challenge Aaryan’s stardom with his fandom is the most thrilling as well as most loose thread of the film.

Inspired from Hollywood film The Fan, writer Habib Faisal has tried to weave a story around real-life incidents of Shahrukh Khan with a tinge of his classic characters from Bazigar and Darr.

Director Maneesh Sharma has built an interesting premise of putting Super Star Shahrukh in front of Shahrukh himself as a fan. Till first half film looks realistic and takes us through a journey of intense conflict between a superstar and his diehard fan, but it lacks emotions.

Just before the interval it takes a violent turn which makes it an unrealistic filmy drama. Suddenly a simpleton fan turns into an action hero like Bruce Lee and intriguing spy like James Bond at the same time is completely unrealistic.

Further a superstar starts chasing an eccentric fan on the streets of London and Delhi, tries to provoke him through his parents and girlfriend seems irritating. In the pre-climax scene, when Gaurav fires gunshots at Aryan, looks completely goofy and insane.

At last film leaves a message for fans to be a star themselves in their respective lives instead of being a copy or follower of the stars yet tragic culmination leaves the audience with a bad after taste. Mimicking scenes in the first half, chase scenes and the wedding sequence in London are too much dragged.

Though Aaryan and Gaurav almost look alike but there are enough visible differences between their looks then how suddenly Gaurav stars appearing similar to Aaryan is surprising for me. For exercising extreme cinematic freedom director has defied the very concept of suspension of disbelief.

Built on a loose foundation of story Fan boasts of a concrete performance by Shahrukh as Gaurav Chanana. He portrays himself as superstar easily, but as a fan, he goes beyond his limits and gives a scintillating performance with a realistic touch in few captivating scenes.

At the end, we saw glimpses of epic Shahrukh of Bazigar and Darr. As supporting and emotional parents Deepika Amin and Yogendra Tiku and Shriya Pilgaonkar as a friend has performed aptly. Seyani Gupta as Aaryan’s manager carries a right look and expression. The cinematography captures the right mood of the story at complimenting locations, but background score is too loud. No song is the part of the screenplay, it’s a big relief.

Sharukh’s Intense performance as Fan in this masala entertainer gets two and a half stars. Read more film review.

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