Sunday, February 14, 2010

My Name Is Khan - Movie and Music Review

The much awaited movie of the year is here and before it even releases, it was surrounded by controversies results being that the movie was banned to be played in many states including Mumbai unfortunately.  I won't go into details of the controversy but all I can say is that something that Shahrukh khan said was made a big deal when it was nothing and political party of shiv sena took the step of banning the film to be played until Shahrukh khan apologized.  Honestly they made something big out of nothing and at the end the audience and the entire Bollywood film fraternity was with  SRK supporting him.

I got to watch the movie last night and I enjoyed it.  Before I go into anything let me tell you that this was a pure Karan Johar film with completely different approach from all his other movies, bringing together Shahrukh khan and Kajol together after long time ...after Kabhi khushi kabhi gham.  First of all, I enjoyed the movie because its SRK movie :).  This is a completely different role that SRK has portrayed who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and different movie from what Karan Johar normally makes.  Kajol is looking gorgeous.  SRK has played the character with such innocence and in many places, it's very cute.  All the light moments between SRK and kajol were cute and romantic.  I think the two messages that the movie brings out is right at the beginning where SRK says "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist" and second where Rizwan's mother says "There are only two kinds of people in this world, good people and bad people" and that's the only difference, and there is no other difference between people even though if they are from different religious background, different nationality...etc.

I wouldn't want to spoil the movie for you, so DON'T READ FURTHER if you don't want to know the movie plot.

As much as I enjoyed the first half of the movie which was not so melodramatic and  went at the right pace with cute moments between SRK and kajol,  I mostly cried in the 2nd half of the movie, starting with the incident that happens with Kajol's son.  That was the heartbreaking scene and Kajol trying to cope with her son's death was so touching and emotional.  Another one is the scene between SRK and Kajol, where she blames him for her son's death because his surname was Khan.  When they get separated and kajol tells him to leave her, very innocently SRK asks "When do I come back?" was a good scene.  Another one of the touching scenes was between Jimmy shergil and SRK when Jimmy asks his brother to come inside the house and he turns away (Jimmy said that there won't be any relationship if he marries Kajol but then something happens with Jimmy's wife and Kajol comes to meet her but SRK doesn't come inside the house).  In short, I cried in every scene where they mentioned the kid's death and the scene between SRK and Kajol.

Now being said that, I also have some comments on the scenes which were dragged and completely unnecessary.
First on the list is the journey of SRK to go meet Mr. President.  He starts with San Francisco, then goes around to Georgia and then somehow comes back to LA ...keeping in mind that he didn't have much cash to start with and at one point he ran out of money with only $2 and some change.  So that was little confusing but if you're not really paying attention to the states you don't really care of where he goes and how he ends up in the state that he is in.

Second, the entire scene where he goes back to Georgia after hearing that a Hurricane has hit the state and there have been devastation.  Now on his journey he goes to state Georgia and meets this lady who gives him shelter and food for a day and that's how he gets attached to her.  When he goes out of Georgia, and hears in the news that Georgia was hit hard in hurricane he goes back to the state....It's not like Georgia is next door...I don't know how he got there so quick and with what transportation.  When he goes back he finds the entire neighborhood in water and all the community members gathered in one church where they're trying to survive and he helps them out.  Well honestly, living in US I know this much that there is no way that rescue teams didn't reach there to help those people get out of the chaos and they were still there after the hurricane hit the place.  This entire Georgia sequence was unnecessary when SRK goes there the second time.

So I guess these two scenes were added as the bollywood masala to wrap up the movie.  Being said this, I still enjoyed the movie and I think it was different from Karan Johar's typical bollywood style romantic, dramatic movies.  Jimmy Shergil has a small role as SRK's brother but has acted well and also the girl who plays his wife is good.

Music Review:
Now for the music of the film, my two favorite tracks are "Tere naina" and "Noor-E-Khuda".  Tere naina is the first song and will stay in your mid until the end because they have the line "Tere naina" playing throughout the movie as background music here and there.  Noor-E-Khuda is a beautiful track sung by Shankar Mahadevan, Adnan Sami and Shreya Ghoshal.  This will also leave a mark in your mind once you hear it.

That's it for the movie and music review folks...I enjoyed the movie and loved SRK and whether you're an SRK fan or not, I am sure you'll find the movie to be different....but I guess you will have to see it yourself to know it and feel the difference :).

Take care...