My Name Is Khan (from the epiglotis) - oh the things you can think
***spoiler alert**** if you plan on watching the movie and don't want to know the story line ahead of time, then don't read this!!!!!
When you think of a Karan Johar movie, the mind immediately wanders to scenes from KKHH/K3G/Dostana etc. with SRK (or an alternative hero) playing the hopeless romantic and some shrill sounding heroine shrieking away; some sure-to-be-hits pop tunes, and a sappy story to go with it. Even KANK had some of the regular masala spices in it. MNIK had SRK, and the shrill heroine... and that's where the comparisons had to stop. Take a little bit of "Forrest Gump", throw in a bit of "Rain Man", and stir in a post 9/11 setting a la New York (for the obligatory "moral of the story" film message), and you have yourself a "My Name is Khan".
SRK plays a person diagnosed wih Asberger's Syndrome (a form of Autism). SRK, although no Dustin Hoffman, was able to pull of being a selective Autistic - almost as in the director forgot in some places to stick to the Autism characterization. SRK's autistic Khan falls flat in some places, again because of bad writing/directing... why do writers try to explain everything and treat audiences as if they were clueless? The movie Rain Man didn't need an hour establishing the fact that Hoffman was Autistic... one scene did it! MNIK relayed the same message about his disability repeatedly. This got tiresome.
The movie starts off with SRK rolling black rocks between his fingers and his palm and walking to the airport. Excellent scene... the movie went downhill from there. He keeps repeating instructions to himself, and that results in his being given the third degree at the airport. Little by little, the director lets the audience in on the story half narrated using a journal that Khan maintains. We are shown how SRK is brought up and loved by his mother in spite of his pagal (mad) behaviour. He is intelligent, can repair almost anything, and has a self-centered brother who would also like a snippet of attention that Khan gets - in short the usual ingredients of a bollywood masala. The scene switches to USA where brother Khan has to deal with his older Autistic brother. Jimmy Shergil had too little to work on, and so does passably on his role. Of course, this being a Bollywood masala, the audience is expected to throw reason out the window - an autistic person (who dislikes loud noises, or the color yellow vehemently) is sent to sell beauty products... door-to-door in SFO; the same autistic person walks into a parlor (with Kajol in it of course) and is able to sell a boat load of product to one of the beauticians as opposed to the owner/manager. While the romance commences and carries on, the audience is treated to 2 beautiful songs "Tere Naina" and "Sajda" - both reminiscent of Mitwa (from Salaam-e-ishq) with the natural SEL flair. The rest of the songs/music for the movie were quite forgetable. Quite disappointing for a SEL/Dharma team. I DID like the fact that the songs were all in the background (as opposed to a scantily clad Kajol and a full suited SRK having a romp in the snowy Rockies mouthing the lyrics to the songs). Well done on that!
The actual story starts only post intermission. The entire first half was spent in setting up the post-interval story! A tragic set of scenes (yes - I cried) and SRK is thrown out of his house by an angry Kajol and told not to return until an impossible task of relating "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist" to the President of the USA is completed. This takes an incredible amount of time. Now SRK emulates Tom Hanks, and Forrest Gump-like travels all around the US following the prez and his itinerary. This is when I really start to get irritated as the audience... if you did not, then you have a LOT more patience than I do, and hats off to you. There are a lot of unnecessary scenes along the way, and he starts gathering followers (again - Gump-like). He is even thrown in jail (obligatory torture scenes), provides information that helps capture potential threats... and oh yeah starts a movement to save hurricane victims in Georgia (Hindi movie.. remember?).
A totally non-Barrack-like Obama finally meets Khan and accepts that he is not a terrorist, and usual moralization and pontification follows. With so much money thrown at the movie, could they not have used some type of graphics imaging to portray realistic meetings between Khan and Obama? After all, Gump met a dead Kennedy!
Don't get me wrong - there were some really excellent scenes (
- Khan describing his son Sam in a church - with eyes brimming but no tears falling;
- Kajol and her final scene with Sam - that was intense;
- Kajol not giving up on finding the miscreants, and her reaction towards Reese afterwards;
- Khan taking all the food that a couple offers him - as opposed to only what he needed;
- Khan's "I'm-watching-you " gesture repeated back at the Feeb investigator as he is released).
Major flaws: Length - It would have been great if MNIK was 2 hrs long - instead of 3. The film lacked consistency in making SRKs character autistic. There was so much going on, that the audience (at least this memeber) was tired and drained at the end - K.Jo should have simplified and concentrated only on the message, or only on the romance. ergo, My Name Is Khan (from the epiglotis) - oh the things you can think...
Thank you for reading.
When you think of a Karan Johar movie, the mind immediately wanders to scenes from KKHH/K3G/Dostana etc. with SRK (or an alternative hero) playing the hopeless romantic and some shrill sounding heroine shrieking away; some sure-to-be-hits pop tunes, and a sappy story to go with it. Even KANK had some of the regular masala spices in it. MNIK had SRK, and the shrill heroine... and that's where the comparisons had to stop. Take a little bit of "Forrest Gump", throw in a bit of "Rain Man", and stir in a post 9/11 setting a la New York (for the obligatory "moral of the story" film message), and you have yourself a "My Name is Khan".
SRK plays a person diagnosed wih Asberger's Syndrome (a form of Autism). SRK, although no Dustin Hoffman, was able to pull of being a selective Autistic - almost as in the director forgot in some places to stick to the Autism characterization. SRK's autistic Khan falls flat in some places, again because of bad writing/directing... why do writers try to explain everything and treat audiences as if they were clueless? The movie Rain Man didn't need an hour establishing the fact that Hoffman was Autistic... one scene did it! MNIK relayed the same message about his disability repeatedly. This got tiresome.
The movie starts off with SRK rolling black rocks between his fingers and his palm and walking to the airport. Excellent scene... the movie went downhill from there. He keeps repeating instructions to himself, and that results in his being given the third degree at the airport. Little by little, the director lets the audience in on the story half narrated using a journal that Khan maintains. We are shown how SRK is brought up and loved by his mother in spite of his pagal (mad) behaviour. He is intelligent, can repair almost anything, and has a self-centered brother who would also like a snippet of attention that Khan gets - in short the usual ingredients of a bollywood masala. The scene switches to USA where brother Khan has to deal with his older Autistic brother. Jimmy Shergil had too little to work on, and so does passably on his role. Of course, this being a Bollywood masala, the audience is expected to throw reason out the window - an autistic person (who dislikes loud noises, or the color yellow vehemently) is sent to sell beauty products... door-to-door in SFO; the same autistic person walks into a parlor (with Kajol in it of course) and is able to sell a boat load of product to one of the beauticians as opposed to the owner/manager. While the romance commences and carries on, the audience is treated to 2 beautiful songs "Tere Naina" and "Sajda" - both reminiscent of Mitwa (from Salaam-e-ishq) with the natural SEL flair. The rest of the songs/music for the movie were quite forgetable. Quite disappointing for a SEL/Dharma team. I DID like the fact that the songs were all in the background (as opposed to a scantily clad Kajol and a full suited SRK having a romp in the snowy Rockies mouthing the lyrics to the songs). Well done on that!
The actual story starts only post intermission. The entire first half was spent in setting up the post-interval story! A tragic set of scenes (yes - I cried) and SRK is thrown out of his house by an angry Kajol and told not to return until an impossible task of relating "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist" to the President of the USA is completed. This takes an incredible amount of time. Now SRK emulates Tom Hanks, and Forrest Gump-like travels all around the US following the prez and his itinerary. This is when I really start to get irritated as the audience... if you did not, then you have a LOT more patience than I do, and hats off to you. There are a lot of unnecessary scenes along the way, and he starts gathering followers (again - Gump-like). He is even thrown in jail (obligatory torture scenes), provides information that helps capture potential threats... and oh yeah starts a movement to save hurricane victims in Georgia (Hindi movie.. remember?).
A totally non-Barrack-like Obama finally meets Khan and accepts that he is not a terrorist, and usual moralization and pontification follows. With so much money thrown at the movie, could they not have used some type of graphics imaging to portray realistic meetings between Khan and Obama? After all, Gump met a dead Kennedy!
Don't get me wrong - there were some really excellent scenes (
- Khan describing his son Sam in a church - with eyes brimming but no tears falling;
- Kajol and her final scene with Sam - that was intense;
- Kajol not giving up on finding the miscreants, and her reaction towards Reese afterwards;
- Khan taking all the food that a couple offers him - as opposed to only what he needed;
- Khan's "I'm-watching-you " gesture repeated back at the Feeb investigator as he is released).
Major flaws: Length - It would have been great if MNIK was 2 hrs long - instead of 3. The film lacked consistency in making SRKs character autistic. There was so much going on, that the audience (at least this memeber) was tired and drained at the end - K.Jo should have simplified and concentrated only on the message, or only on the romance. ergo, My Name Is Khan (from the epiglotis) - oh the things you can think...
Thank you for reading.
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