Khan is not quite upto the mark.

Grade: C

My Name is Khan

Indian Release Date: 12/02/10
CBFC Classification:  U/A
Running Length: 2 Hours 30 Minutes

Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Jimmy Shergil, Parvin Dabbas, Arif Zakaria, Arjun Mathur, Zarina Wahab, Sonia Jehan, Vinay Pathak, Yuvaan Makar, Tanay Chheda, Jennifer Echols, Kenton Duty, Katie Keane  
Director: Karan Johar
Screenplay: Shibani Bhatija
Cinematography: Ravi K. Chandran
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

Mired by many controversies, the release of ‘My Name is Khan’ was no less than an event in itself. Starting right from Shahrukh Khan’s detention at an American airport late in 2009, (after which the star proudly proclaimed that the only reason he was detained was cause his ‘Name was Khan’) to the huge three-way standoff between the Shiv Sena, the Maharashtra government & Mr.Khan everything added reason upon reason for people to actually go out & watch the movie. So was the entire brouhaha worth it? Maybe for the makers of the movie cause I’m sure they are smiling all the way to the bank. What about the viewing audience? Hmmm….them I’m not sure about, atleast not for me personally.

Rizwan Khan (Tanay Chheda when a kid, Shahrukh Khan when grown up) is afflicted with Asperger Syndrome which renders him with extremely limited social interaction skills (aloof, unexpressive & unemotional) & makes him more or less a pariah to others. His mother played by Zarine Wahab is the only one who offers him unconditional love & teaches him about good & bad in the world in a manner which he can easily comprehend things. After her death he goes to live with his brother Zakir (Jimmy Shergil) in San Francisco who’s never been very accepting of Rizwan in the first place. Soon however Rizwan falls head over heels for Mandira ( Kajol ) a single mother living with her son Sameer (Yuvaan Makar ) & sets out to woo her in a unique way which smacks more of bubble-gum romance than any sort of reality considering Rizwan’s medical condition.

Rizwan & Mandira get married soon despite protests from Zakir & everything seems to be going well until the 9/11 twin tower terrorist strikes occur & public perception towards Muslims causes a lot of difficulty for the family ultimately leading to a fatal tragedy that sends Rizwan on a journey across America trying to reach the President so that he can personally tell him “My name is Khan & I’m not a terrorist”.    

First the good part, the movie has it’s heart in the right place. The message it wants to put across about religious tolerance & the essence of humanity is put across earnestly & though it gets far too preachy for it’s own good at times, it always sticks to the simple representation of good & evil as seen through Rizwan’s eyes which also makes it a far more easily digestible commodity for most Hindi cinema audiences. This also means the movie has very little depth in portraying complex issues like racism & the world post 9/11, so people looking for something more profound will be sorely disappointed.

The relationship between Rizwan & his mother has some very poignant moments & works more so because of Zarine Wahab’s heartfelt performance, too bad she’s only around for ten to fifteen minutes of the movie. Every other relationship Rizwan has in the movie pales in comparison to the relationship he shares with his mother.  

Now for the bad, the movie is either absolutely clueless or swimming in shallow waters in regards to it’s surroundings, issues, characters & for a movie preaching racial tolerance is surprisingly stereotypical in it’s portrayal of people from various races (the sections set in Wilhelmina or Vinay Pathak’s character are perfect examples of this). Subtlety & complexity have never been the fortes of most Bollywood movies or any of Karan Johar’s movies either & the trend doesn’t change here either.  

The other important thing which the movie doesn’t quite get right is the affliction of the character & how it affects the story. Now I haven’t actually met anyone with Asperger Syndrome but in the wake of ‘My Name is Khan’ actually ended up reading quite a bit about the disease & watched a handful of movies which also had characters specifically diagnosed with the same medical condition as Rizwan. Though Shahrukh Khan tires real hard to show off his acting skills he tends to over-do things which make him look more like Dustin Hoffman’s autistic savant from ‘Rain Man’ rather than Hugh Dancy’s understated life-like performance in ‘Adam’ (he has Asperger’s in the movie). Plus scenes in the second half during a hurricane rescue effort, the normally docile Rizwan suddenly turns into a leader directing other people to work & he even forgets his peculiar physical mannerisms. Certain (actually nearly all) humorous situations are designed around Rizwan’s lack of social skills & while some are genuinely funny, others feel forcibly tacked on, like why would anyone in their right mind make someone like Rizwan a cosmetic products salesman & that too someone who’d have to travel across the city knowing he’s afraid of crowded & noisy places.

The constant body twitching & the other quaint mannerisms make the performance more distracting than involving & seems to scream out only one thing, “My Name is Khan & I CAN ACT!!!”. It’s not like the character is completely wrongly portrayed or written but the representation is so conspicuously uneven that quite an impact which could have been attained with a strong lead character within this kitschy melodramatic tale is lost (just look at something like Forrest Gump).  

The movie’s narrative cuts back & forth between time Rizwan’s journey & his life before that & while this style isn’t bad, it does however throw up some glaring mistakes. For example the journey is supposed to take place between 2007 & 2008 (trying hard to get Obama, the “good” American president into the picture rather than Bush), while Rizwan has been living with Mandira & Sameer since roughly around the year 2000, yet in the passing 7 years the characters don’t seem to age a single day, especially Sameer. The movie has a very poor sense of passage of time especially considering a good chunk of it encompasses nearly a decade. The second half is full of sub-plots which act as nothing more than padding for the running length

Thankfully some sobriety of the tale is retained due to the songs at least not following the usual song & dance template. The songs are kept in the background & while they aren’t exactly great to listen to they won’t give you a headache either.

Kajol & Jimmy Shergil are competent enough though nothing in their roles is really a stretch for them from their previous work. Arjun Mathur, Parvin Dabbas, Vinay Pathak are all wasted in inconsequential roles.

‘My Name is Khan’ is nowhere close to a good movie, though it has it’s moments far & few in between & nearly all of them in the first half. The message though earnest is far too ham-fisted & the treatment of the characters & events is so over-the-top at times that you’d be rolling your eyes in disbelief mostly. Probably maybe worth a watch once it releases on DVD, but it’s likely you’ve already spent your hard-earned money on a theatre ticket.   

Final Verdict: My Name is Bagdadi & I’m not impressed.

Grade: C

 

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