Film: My Name Is Khan
Release date: 28th June 2010
Certificate: 12
Running time: 161 mins
Director: Karan Johar
Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Kajol Devgan, Christopher Duncan, Tanay Chhecla
Genre: Drama/Romance/Bollywood
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Format: DVD
Country: India
Indian super-star Sharukh Khan takes the lead in this sprawling American/Indian epic, chronicling the effects of Bush’s “war-on-terror’” on the Islamic community.
My Name is Khan follows the life of Rizwan Khan, a young man who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome.
After the death of his mother, Khan moves from India to America and is given a job selling cosmetics to hair-saloons. It is here that he meets the love of his life Mandira, played by the beautiful Kajol.
Soon Khan and Mandira are living an idyllic married life. However, this serenity is short-lived as Mandira’s child from another marriage is brutally beaten to death by a group of blood-thirsty youths. Mandira is driven to a mission of justice and, with the understanding that, post 9-11, it is Khan’s Islamic beliefs that got their son killed, throws Khan out onto the street.
With this, Khan begins an epic journey across America to meet George Bush with his message “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.”
Not a single scene in this film goes by where Shibani Bathija’s script does not know exactly what it is trying to express. Post 9-11, the Islamic community have been persecuted, and unfairly blamed by a domineering culture in desperate need of a scapegoat. In My Name Is Khan, we have a film that is brave enough to step up and defend the persecuted minority, which is something to admire. Sadly, the film is burdened by its own self-importance, and forsakes intelligent discussion for shameless emotional blackmail. Shibani Bathija’s script makes no attempt to penetrate further than the surface, and reduces this morally complex issue to the level of preachy rhetoric, lazy slogans and vacant, near mechanical cliché.
My Name Is Khan has a disturbing and offensive reliance on moral dualism and simplistic caricature. White America is portrayed as a seething mass of ignorance and stupidity. A populous so idiotic that even the mention of the word ‘terrorist’ is enough to incite a full-blown riot. In more than one scene, the American people somehow manage to take time out of their busy schedule of yanking Burkas, and assaulting young children, to become a blood-thirsty Frankenstein-esque angry mob. Which would be fine if taken in the context of satire or comedic social commentary; but here it is nothing more than faulty and overly simplistic representation.
With the character Mama Jenny, the film stoops to new lows creating a creature so steeped in stereotype that she resembles a cartoon character more than an actual human being. A jive-talking, over-weight, gospel singing nightmare. Perhaps more bafflingly given the film’s main narrative arc, the portrayal of Muslims who aren’t the lovable and comfortingly impotent protagonist are either ashamed of their faith or actually the Jihad wielding fanatics of so much Murdoch fantasy. For a film supposedly about tolerance, it is, at times, outrageously racist.
Karan Johar’s direction relies on a certain brand of Bollywood emotionalism to try and carry his audience through the long running time. At times, it stylistically resembles the works of Milos Forman in its opulent colour, massive scale and character-based humanitarianism. But Karan Johar is playing with fire here, and in light of its subject matter, this cheesy and over-romanticised version of current affairs appears bad-taste, even dangerous.
But most of the anticipation for this film was because of Shahrukh Khan. A huge star in India, many were betting that this would be his breakthrough performance, and for the most part he does create a very likeable, and convincing main character. But they are times where his performance becomes mocking, both he and the film don’t seem to mind occasionally playing the main character’s Aspergers Syndrome for laughs. Ultimately, even if his portrayal was the thing of Oscar winners, it would still be surrounded by a glossy, patronising and offensive melodrama, and Shahrukh’s undeniable talent does little to change this.
An exploitative exercise in sentimentalism that reduces complex issues to the level of Hollywood weepy. AC
