Film Review: My Name is Khan

BY MICHAEL FIELD

Aucklanders have been watching a high profile Bollywood movie that is seriously stressful to watch in Bollywood.

My Name Is Khan is a cross between Rain Man and Forrest Gump wrapped in rotis and served with over cooked birinyi.

An otherwise inoffensive, if mildly engaging movie to a New Zealand audience, it has buried in it so many India codewords that people are rushing to the barricades to stop it screening.

It is virtually impossible to see in Mumbai - or, as Rahul Gandhi (Rajiv Gandhi's son) termed it, Bombay.

The movie is notable because celebrated action man Shahrukh 'SRK' Khan is the main star. Just about anything he is in will turn a profit on his name alone.

His character is different in this movie. He plays Rizvan Khan who suffers from Asperger's syndrome which makes it very hard for him to emotionally connect with others.

The death of his mother in Mumbai means he has to move to San Francisco to be with his reluctant brother.

At this point the 1988 film Rain Man comes into play. Dustin Hoffman's character in that was also travelling across America. He was an autistic savant.

Khan - whose name defines his Islamic religion - finds happiness with a Hindu divorcee and her son. All is well until the events of 9/11 and American hostility toward Muslims increases.

The plot gets complicated and Khan finds himself trekking across America wanting to meet the president. It borrows heavily from Forrest Gump.

In fairness though, SRK brings to a lot of skill to playing Khan.

The plot meanders toward the second half, and some of the filming is plainly silly. A black village in Georgia is some kind of Indian parody of what they think American rural blacks live like.

The movie is in all kinds of political strife in India, especially Mumbai.

Part of it has nothing to do with the movie at all. People are angry that SRK said it was wrong to exclude Pakistani players from this year's IPL Twenty20 cricket.

Also behind the protests is Shiv Sena, an extreme Hindi group that controls Mumbai politics and is rapidly sending the great city back to the Stone Age.

Rather than see themselves as Indians, Shiv Sena wants Mumbai to be indigenous Marathi - and people like SRK and all the others leave.

It's so bad that one of Mumbai's greatest sons, cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, is having to say he is Indian first ... and was then attacked by the Sena.

It is the Sena who insist on Mumbai - much of the rest of India was content with Bombay.

It makes My Name is Khan an ironic film, because its rather unsubtle message is that Muslim and Hindu can get along together with problems.

It's a peaceful if slow and disjointed movie. It's good to watch if only because you can.

My Name is Khan
Director: Karan Johar
Starring: Shahrukh Kahn, Kajol Mukherjee
Time: 161 minutes
Rated: M
Trailer: www.mynameiskhanthefilm.com

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