FAN movie review

FAN, well we all are of many things, activities, movie superstars, sports and political personalities etc etc. Fan the film has one such character named Gaurav who is obsessed with Superstar Aaryan Khanna that makes him live his life under the influence of the actor which makes him forget his own life.
The film is made of a well executed and promising first half with a standout performance from Sharukh Khan. But the latter half though watchable could not live upto the promises of the first seventy minutes or so. Had the screenplay been better in the final stages and was able to compliment the better looking pre-interval session, Fan could have ended up in a better way and better shape.
Gaurav, a youth hailing from the suburbs of Delhi is fond of actor Aaryan Khanna. "To be fond of" will be too light and too small a description to explain the love he has for the superstar. Its much more than that as he is a hardcore fan and a lookalike of Aaryan. He decides to go and meet the actor in person but when the going does not move as the way he planned, the fan in him gets obsessive and dangerous. He plots the actor's downfall exploiting his similarity in looks.
Well you might me thinking why I have explored too much into the storyline. Its because what I have explained here is almost the same thing that was shown in the trailer too. I don't know why they revealed too much as it was an easy guessing game about the plot if one has seen Fan's trailer.
There is nothing more and nothing less in the film as the basic thread in the story revolves around the Fan following the superstar in the first half that turns upside down in the second half as it is the superstar's turn to follow his fan for obvious reasons.
In my opinion, the film deserved a better finishing and a more impressive second half. What happened here was that the screenplay turned weak as the movie progressed from the halfway mark. One could sense a light hearted and careless approach to finish off things in a hurry that puts the film on a sticky wicket.
On the performance side, it was vintage Sharukh Khan. As Gaurav he proves that the actor in him is still alive. One could never see SRK in Gaurav as he made sure that this character stands different from the real SRK.
When it came to Aaryan Khanna that has complete makeover of Sharukh's real self, it was another effort that looked totally convincing. Read in a newspaper the other day an interview of the actor saying that for him portraying Aaryan was more tougher than Gaurav. Well seeing things, I have to contradict him. Respecting his experience and views but looking at the way he has handled both Gaurav and Aaryan, I think depicting Gaurav was more complicated than Aaryan.
Yogendra Tikku and Deepika Amin are the supporting actors playing parents to Gaurav who have something to act apart from SRK. Few more supporting actors are there with limited roles but I am not family with their names.
Fan is not a total washout but it could have been far far better. The movie had a great thread in it to show something exceptional and it was evident till the halfway stage. But it could not capitalise on its initial promise and ended up on the brink of an average film even with some exceptional performance from the lead actor of whom I myself is a big fan. My rating is two and a half out of five for Maneesh Sharma's FAN, the movie.
Rating - 2.5 / 5