My name is Khan
My name is khan (from the epiglottis!).
It is touching, brave, endearing, naive, and simple. On the other hand it also has typical KJo outlandish style of doing things, lots of rona dhona and a bit slack storytelling after intermission.
But it still is a good movie, because,
1. KJo has grown up. I remember after 26/11 he had said in his blog that we need to make peace with ourselves first. The movie portrays the same line of thought. It essentially remains a love story, but with a deeper message. And mind you, it never preaches anything. Never. Its just a point of view at looking at the world. And it remains so. But it touches you along the way.
2. I like Sharukh Khan. No, that's actually an understatement. I loooooooove SRK. He is one actor about whom I am going to tell my kids lots of stories (as my dad still tells me about AB and Rajesh Khanna), though I havent seen a lot of his movies (Guddu, Ram Jane, the ones in which he has done a cameo). But this dude here is awesome! There is this guy who plays Sheldon Cooper in BBT. And if you have seen him you know what it means to be portraying a not-so-normal person. Go Rizwan Khan. Oops ShahRukh Khan :)
3. I know KJo is often criticized for living in larger than life fantasy land and portraying his characters to be some king and queens of lala land. This time one doesnt get the usual colors, hues and feel good things. Not in plenty at least. But we do get a lot of style. May be his production values are really strong and he wants his movies to look really good. I dont mind that. I actually like that. The characters wearing nice clothes and donning trendy hairstyles. After all they live in the bay area ;)
4. KJo's talent really gets portrayed in the scenes shot in Mumbai, where Rizwan has grown up. Zarina Wahab is amazing. You actually feel like this is how you also grew up. Well, everyone of us for that matter. This is where Rizu's mom tells him about the divide between people very simply and the way it gets engraved on his mind and the way he carries it forward.
5. I really dont wish to talk a lot. But guess I have already contradicted myself. Anywho, the movie loses its grip after intermission. Rizu pulls off a Forrest Gump. Not bad at all. Not many Indians (here I mean hindi movie lovers) are acquainted with Forrest. But it feels odd not in a preachy way but in an ick-ish way. It in turn also introduces you to typical Amru characters like funny hair Joel and Mama Jenny. And that phase has the most touching scene of the movie, where a bereaved Rizwan talks about Sam. So in the entire lets be good and spread goodwill spirit, I think I will ignore that.
All in all, one should watch MNIK because Karan Johar has finally grown up, it portrays Indian Cinema in a bigger way (we are more than fall in love and running around trees kind of people way ;)), SRK has given like this god level performance and finally because the movie has a heart. A very sensitive one. It can feel all the pain and hatred. And it wants to do something for peace. For inner peace.
My name is not Khan. And I am a fan :)
~nightflier