My Name is Khan

Star cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol

Plot: Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol’s child gets killed in an aftermath of 9/11 in America. Kajol blames her husband and his religion for the hate crime which claimed the child’s life. Shah Rukh then undertakes a journey to meet the president of the USA to tell him that every Muslim should not be construed as a terrorist.

What’s Good: Performances of the lead players; songs.

What’s Bad:The screenplay; the climax.

Verdict: MY NAME IS KHAN may find favour with the élite audience but it will be rejected by the Indian masses.

Dharma Productions Pvt. Ltd. and Red Chillies Entertainment’s My Name Is Khan (UA) is the story of Rizvan Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. He is very intelligent and has a photographic memory but he has some major problems like he takes the spoken word literally, and he is scared of yellow colour and of noise. He meets Mandira (Kajol) when he lands in San Francisco in the nineties to live with his brother, Zakir (Jimmy Shergill), and his wife, Hasina (Soniya Jehan). Mandira is a single mother and her world is her little, school-going child, Sameer (Yuvaan Makkar). Rizvan marries Mandira and soon, Sameer Rathore becomes Sameer Khan.Life for the Khans changes after the twin tower bombings of September 11, 2001 in New York. Thanks to their last name, they are viewed as terrorists by their acquaintances.Why, Sameer’s best friend, Reese Garrick (Kenton Duty), also starts hating him because his father has been killed at the hands of Muslim terrorists elsewhere. One day, Sameer is killed by a group of white bullies in school, ostensibly because they hate him for being a Muslim. Reese tries his best to save Sameer but fails. Rizvan and Mandira are crestfallen. Mandira blames the Khan surname for her personal loss and asks her husband to get out of her life. In a fit of rage, she tells him to, in the alternative, convince the president of America that although his name is Khan, he isn’t a terrorist. Rizvan takes her words literally and sets out from San Francisco to meet the US president in Washington.His journey is not easy by any standards. On one occasion, he is arrested and put behind bars on suspicion of being a terrorist himself.