A film with two Shah Rukh Khans – one of them is the SRK as he appears in real life, and the other is the SRK from his early movies we all starting loving him from. On to the usual 6 points.
- The obvious: Wow it’s got two-two SRKs! And not like Duplicate, where the plot was furthered purely on them looking identical. Here SRK-2 has to take extra pains to pass for SRK-1. Well, the film crew took extra pains to make SRK look non-SRK. Inconsistencies on Gaurav’s look in some frames aside, thumbs up for pulling this off. While Gaurav Chandna looks every bit the 20-something Delhi boy whose mannerisms are like an early lanky SRK playing the 20-something local boy, and who sometimes turns into “indistinguishable from Aryan Khanna” when he intends to (i.e. when he goes “kar ke dikhata hoon“), SRK the real one impresses as being the larger than life, accomplished star that he is, right from his first frame. And Aryan Khanna isn’t shown as a do-gooder, made of the first snow, purely innocent victim here – he has feet of clay, he isn’t perfect, and he could have done a few things in a different way to avoid everything that followed. It’s difficult to root for either of them consistently – which makes it more interesting.
- It’s a thriller: The chase sequences, while thrilling, are too long and over the top. Each one of them. The end could have been way way shorter. Also, when we’re watching a film about a film star and a fan, it’s hard to suspend our disbelief when they’re both performing stunts fit for James Bond in every third scene.
- The ladies: Shriya Pilgaonkar, Sayani Gupta, Waluscha Dsouza, are present, noticeable, and do well in a film with two SRKs. No mean feat, especially for first-timers(?).
- My Name Is Khanna: SRK plays up his “chip on the shoulder with foreign law enforcement” bit again. The dialogues between Aryan and the interrogating police officer, and with the filthy-rich-NRI-patron are fun to watch. In fact, Aryan’s arrogant, borderline obnoxious wit makes him more real.
- The Brother: The mimicry of a contemporary actor (and I’m not telling you whom, go watch) is just accurate enough to become uncanny, and by the time you recognise it, it’s gone. Just shows that SRK can act, even when he’s not supposed to act like SRK.
- Comparisons with “originals”: I’ve seen The King of Comedy, and I’ve read the story of The Fan. SRK pulls off… wait… he isn’t even trying to pull off a DeNiro here. The archetype of the story has to be similar, but the writer and director have localised the context so much, that it’s an original in its own right (I haven’t yet watched The Fan, so don’t know if sequences, frames et al have been lifted). If you are going to ask Maneesh Sharma and Habib Faisal if this is inspired from the other two, and they say they came up with the story on their own, I’m going to believe them, whether you do or not.
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If you were looking for a review of the film, this wasn’t it. You should be reading Rahul Desai’s blog for that.
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Also, here are three jokes around Fan that have been floating around, verbatim. I’m looking for three more jokes to complete the list, so if you have any, please comment:
- “SRK’s fans are watching SRK’s Fan where SRK is SRK’s fan who tries to kill SRK’s fan [sic] coz SRK’s fan tried tokill SRK, Fan is Indian Inception”
- Watching ‘FAN’ right now. It’s just amazing and mind blowing. I will give it three stars out of five. You can also watch it live at your place. Just switch it on and it will start revolving [sic] at an amazing speed on the top of your roof [sic]!! 😃
- Kamal Haasan watches Fan. Decides to remake it. Adds a couple of more lookalikes to the film. Multiple fans against one star. – Rony D’Costa