My Name is Khan (MNIK) is a movie which has hogged the headlines more than any other movie for the past few days mostly because of Shiv Sena's decision to boycott this movie in retaliation for Shahrukh Khan's recent comments in the media about Pakistan's players not being included in the Indian Premier League.
Today when one of my flatmate suggested that we go and watch MNIK even though I knew it was a movie which has as its main theme racial profiling a story on which recent movies like New York and Kurbaan was released, I thought it would be a good time pass.
MNIK was screening at Brendon theatre in our area i.e. Concord. MNIK turned out to be a surprise package. Leaving aside SRK's claims of being questioned by the Customs and Border Patrol officers(CBP) at an US airport, the movie comes across as something with substance. We would have seen umpteen Bollywood movies which have huge budgets, song and dance, big star cast and one missing link - a script. The protagonist in this movie is an individual Rizwan Khan who has Aspergers syndrome. The main symptom of which being severe trouble with social situations (Source: http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/tc/aspergers-syndrome-symptoms).
Rizwan Khan wants to meet the president of the United States and tell him "My name is Rizwan Khan and I am not a terrorist"
From the start till the end, this simple statement forms a key linchpin for the entire movie. MINK has mostly serious situations but also some genuinely funny moments. Take for example a few scenes "Mandira (Kajol) is busy in the kitchen when Rizwan(SRK) walks upto her and says that he wants to have sex with her right now." It was direct but the way the whole scene was aesthetically done shows that Indian cinema has really come of age. We are no longer prudish about the S word and that's a good sign.
Another scene after post 9/11 when Kajol applies for a job and frankly tells the interviewer that her surname is Khan and she is married to a muslim. But I was moved by one particular scene involving Mandira (Kajol)'s son Sameer who gets into a fight at a soccer field in his school. Kajol is a natural on the camera and it doesn't seem that her long absence from the big screen has done any difference to her acting talent. She can give the present day actresses a run for their money :) SRK is good however he can't let go off his hamming in some scenes.
My main grouse with the movie is the second half which seems to get pretty heavy with the track involving African Americans. Why should the African Americans be shown mostly as poor? The movie clearly drags here. Overall the movie has been intelligently made and is straight from the heart. It ends with a simple message as Zarina Wahab (nice cameo) tells her son Rizwan that there are good people and there are also bad people.
MNIK has been shot across the United States but a substantial part of the movie has been shot in San Francisco city in California.
I was not expecting a location such as Bowling Green in Kentucky to show up on the screen as it doesn't seem to be a favorite location for film directors much less Bollywood. Its a small and very quiet city. I should know it as I lived there for more than a month. My brother Akki must be feeling proud that Bowling Green made it to the big screen :)
I really liked MNIK. You can watch it atleast once and if I were to rate MNIK, I would give it
(Image courtesy: http://www.mynameiskhan.org/film/mnik-posters/)
