My Name is Khan Review (2010)

Friday Freak's Note.

My Name is Khan has generated quite some controversy and news ever since it was first announced. When the movie was first named, it seemed like Karan Johar was trying to create a comedy rifraff with Shah Rukh Khan in as the protagonist. Later, it was announced that it is a thriller that had to do something with an assassination attempt on the President.

As time progressed, the movie became the center of controversy because Shah Rukh Khan was arrested at an international airport, and was detained and maybe given the 'pat down' treatment. These aspects kept the movie in the media limelight, and the final blow, or incident came a week before the release of the movie, when Shah Rukh Khan was targeted by some groups for his comments about the inclusion of some cricketers in the IPL, a national cricket tournament in India.

Conspiracy Theorists will say that all this was done for the publicity of the movie, and that everyone had a fair share in whatever incidents came up while the world waited for the release of the movie. Does the movie live to it's hype, or is it another case of a Bollywood movie growing big because of a superstar being in there, and not because of the script or the storyline. here's the review.

My Name is Khan Review:

Cast:

Shah Rukh Khan: Rizwan Khan

Kajol Devgan: Mandira Rathore Khan.

And many more in Cameos

Plot:

Rizwan Khan is an average Muslim who meets Mandira, a divorcee with a child and falls in love with her. The both marry and have a very happy life, until September 9/11 strikes and their world changes. Like everyone else in the world, Rizwan Khan and his family face ostracism, humiliation and illogical attacks, which they take in their stride, until one attack changes their life forever. It is now upto Rizwan Khan to piece his personal and family life together.

Review:

The movie has a very strong storyline and that is supported by career best roles by both Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. Come to think of it, except Dulha Mil Gaya, everytime we see Shah Rukh Khan in a role, we think that it is his career best role. The main thing is that this guy is so malleable into any role, that it is simply impossible to find flaws in his method of acting.  And with the kind of roles that he is taking on, it is evident that he no longer wants to take on light issues like patriarchal  families, or the underdog employee, and he has a star stature that can allow him to take on issues like global terrorism and women's emancipation.

The movie has a very strong plot, but is something that threatens to fall apart every now and then, and this is where the acting chops of almost every character in the movie come to play. Right from Shah Rukh Khan to Vinay Pathak, everyone seems to have decided to make their role memorable in this movie. 

While the plot is strong, it suffers from the same thing that movies like Rambo 4 suffered. In the '80s, we could believe that one man can save the whole of the world, and we had a innocent, distant information that things were not as bad as they were shown on the screen. But with the advent of the internet, globalization, user generated news and the penetration of media, we have see much, much worse scenarios than any movie can show us, and we know those guys have gone unpunished.  

When I read about Shah Rukh Khan as the guy who is undergoing injustice, I remember Aung San Suu Kyi, (If you do not know who Aung San Suu Kyi is, please get lost from my blog, I can do without the traffic) and I know that her life is not a movie thats' gonna be over in three hours. So, more or less, this is escapist fare for a well read, internet savvy individual living in 2010. 

There are several highpoints in the movie, in fact, every scene is a high point in the movie. The main reason for this is that the movie tackles many aspects, right from the government inaction over the floods, to racial bias, to even ragging, to a large extent. 

The canvas of the movie is so large that one wouldn't go into the details as to whether Shah Rukh Khan has acted the Asperger's right, or whether it is plausible enough for him to be able to run away from a room full of terrorists, or whether the racial attack was getting almost justifiable after the second attack.  This is a movie that works well if you agree to something that I read a long time back:

God Looks after Drunkards and the Mentally Incompetent, and you take the same track for a person with a medical ailment and bearing the brunt of  a racial attack to his own family.