Vampire Owl: We are looking forward to our fans. I am going to call them my friends, brothers and potato chips.

Vampire Bat: No, we are not. Our policy is against having fans.

Vampire Owl: Oh! What about one special fan?

Vampire Bat: No, especially not one special fan.

Vampire Owl: But they are all poor, brainless zombie minions in my case.

Vampire Bat: It is the same problem with the fans. They are also mostly brainless.

Vampire Owl: Yes, I have seen them posting “bomblastic”, “elastic”, “fanta-stick”, “amaze-singh” and all for their favourite stars’ movies even before the flicks release.

Vampire Bat: You do see the problem, don’t you? And after the dumb movies release, they abuse people who say that a dumb movie is not good enough.

Vampire Owl: Yes, the lack of brains. Can they grow some? We can provide the nutrients.

Vampire Bat: We are still discovering a special magic for the same.

[Gets three cups of tea with tapioca chips].

What is the movie about? :: Gaurav Chadana (Shah Rukh Khan) is a big fan of the popular Bollywood superstar Aryan Khanna (Shah Rukh Khan in the second role). He has managed to keep a certain obsession with the superstar for such a long time, that he often forgets everything else in his life. His career or the people around him rarely becomes his priority in a life filled with strange obsession. Even though a lot younger, his face has some similarity with that of Aryan, and that helps him to win local competitions and talent shows talking, acting and dancing as Aryan. He has a crush on the girl in the neighbourhood, Neha (Shriya Pilgaonkar), but his big passion and admiration is for the superstar whom he had grown up watching. He has been thinking about the same only, and one day goes on a journey to Mumbai in order to meet Aryan in person.

So, what happens next in the movie? :: Gaurav reaches Mumbai, and resides in the hotel room where Aryan had lived long ago before becoming a star, and begins his attempts to meet the superstar – but he just can’t get past the top-level security. As a younger rising superstar makes some rude remarks about Aryan, Gaurav gets into his place, posing as his fan, and beats him up – he also makes him apologize for talking against Aryan. But as the video is uploaded on the internet for the world to see, Aryan retaliates by getting him arrested. After getting beaten up by the police, Gaurav is only so happy to meet Aryan for the first time in his life. But Aryan scolds him, and tells the boy that it was he who got him arrested, and it is better for him to leave for Delhi. An angry Gaurav is not happy about it, and decides to retaliate – but how? And where will this angry revenge lead?

The defence of Fan :: This is the movie of Shah Rukh Khan as he single-handedly makes this movie successful, as he conveys the message against dumb fan worship perfectly. It is him versus him in two roles; Shah Rukh Khan against Shah Rukh Khan as both wins here – two grand performances here. Everyone else might be there, but the focus is always on him, and he plays these character with such honesty that one really feels the need to applaud now and then. He also makes us see that these fans make their own families and loved one suffer, and it is a major really relevant in this age. The whole thing is done nicely and quickly, with no drag. There are no silly songs to slow down things, and there is no dumb humour which had the chance to be here. So, this one becomes Shah Rukh Khan’s best performance in the last few years, and one of his smartest movies in the same period of time. Yes, Waluscha de Sousa and Shriya Pilgaonkar are good too, but this is a Shah Rukh show in full power.

Claws of flaw :: Even though one side of the movie feels so real, there are part of the movie that are overdone, especially with a simple boy from a common family with so less number of friends able to cause this much trouble to a very influential superstar – something which would be near impossible to do undetected in real life. Some sequences do make one wonder if this particular person has been doing the same for many years – maybe he has a habit of bothering people all the time, but sometimes, fans are really good at that, aren’t they? There was the need to keep this one completely within the realistic angle, and the failure to do so has also hurt here. This could have also been done as a thriller, with the superstar as well as us knowing what hit the man only later. To add that, the fans who usually watch a movie twenty five times might have not watched this movie either.

Soul exploration :: There is one major reason why this won’t be a major hit like the other movies of Shah Rukh Khan or even the rest of the big names – it is because this is the most honest attempt by any actor in Bollywood to make people understand the evil that exists in the form of fans. This is not brainless thing like Chennai Express or eternally overrated like Dear Zindagi; for the kind of audience that likes Dilwale and Happy New Year, this was not the case. People still want a million sequels to Dhoom and Krrish and its keeps being proven again and again. This is the only reason why this movie didn’t gross more than these other movies; the increasing need for people to grow brains is there. Without that, when the zombie apocalypse finally arrives, there will be nobody to eat these people – just think how sad that will be for the zombies; no you only think about yourselves. Brains and fans – too far away from each other, unless one day, there is no hate and abuse, but only the desire to do good in the name of the superstar.

[A few minutes after the movie].

Vampire Owl: There is another way, you know.

Vampire Bat: No, whatever you are thinking about, drop that idea right now.

Vampire Owl: We could be someone’s fan. Then we can do no job throughout our lives and tell everyone that we are fan club secretary of Transylvania wing.

Vampire Bat: Did you not understand anything from this movie?

Vampire Owl: Yes, I understood the easy way.

Vampire Bat: Who are you going to be a fan of?

Vampire Owl: What about Uncle Dracula?

Vampire Bat: Dude, his existence is Z-level secret. That creepy old dude Van Helsing will come back from the dead if he knows that Uncle Dracula is alive and has a fan-base.

Vampire Owl: I wouldn’t want that. He smells bad.

Vampire Bat: So, keep it a “no fan” area. Keep every fan away.

[Gets on the Vampire Bat Mobile and travels to the tree-top].

Release date: 15th April 2016
Running time: 138 minutes
Directed by: Maneesh Sharma
Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Waluscha de Sousa, Sayani Gupta, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Deepika Amin, Yogendra Tiku

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.