Anupama reviews My Name Is Khan

NDTV's Consulting Editor Anupama Chopra says: "My Name is Khan is a film made with sincerity and sweat, ambition and conviction. It grapples with the most urgent and fraught issue facing humanity: religion. It features a striking performance by Shah Rukh Khan."

"It has some scenes that will bruise you. Yet despite all this, My Name is Khan never becomes the empowering, inspiring Forest Gump-like epic. Mainly because the connective tissue tying it together is deeply flawed and in places, embarrassingly naive," she further writes.

Anupama further says: "Khan is the story of Rizwan Khan, played by Shah Rukh, who has Asperger's syndrome. This milder form of autism impairs Rizwan's social communication skills and gives him some decidedly odd behavior patterns – he can't stand loud sounds or the colour yellow."

"My Name is Khan is on firm footing as long as director Karan Johar stays with emotional drama. He opens the film skillfully with airport security searching Rizwan and then moves into flashback."

"The second half scrambles madly both literally and figuratively. Rizwan, obviously superman in another life, manages to shout down a hate-mongering Muslim doctor, have him arrested by the FBI, get arrested himself and in a ridiculous pre-climactic sequence, save the citizens of a small town when floods hit Georgia."

The film's director, Karan Johar, tweeted "On my way to the airport..nerves are high, morale is higher and the city support is the highest..more power to the mighty mumbaikar..."

Seen here, SRK in a still from the film.

Anupama further says: "Kajol is struggling with a thin character, mostly veers between being hyper and cute."

Anupama writes: "Rizwan is undeniably the best thing about My Name is Khan. Shah Rukh's performance has little subtlety about it – for that watch Hugh Dancy doing Asperger's in Adam – but it is heartfelt, endearing and more controlled than anything he's ever done before. Watch him in a lovely scene in which Kajol accepts his proposal or how he restrains his tears so that his eyes brim but never well over."

This is Kajol's fourth film after marriage. The talented actress won a Filmfare for Fanaa, which was her first major release post marriage.

Anupama further writes: "I recommend that you see Khan for him (SRK). The film itself is too uneven to give us the emotional high we were waiting for.

The movie had a world premiere in Abu Dhabi recently.

Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in a wedding sequence from the film.

Director Karan Johar's last outing with SRK was a flop, but the director said that the superstar is not only good at emoting but is capable of directing a film too.

My Name is Khan is SRK-Kajol's sixth film after DDLJ, Kabhie Khushi Kabhi Gham, Karan Arjun, Baazigar and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.

Apparently the team had a tough time shooting in San Francisco because scores of India fans turned up on the sets to watch their favourite actors Kajol and SRK shoot together.

Karan Johar said in one of his interivew that had Kajol said no to Mandira's role in MNIK it would have been difficult for him to make the film.

The movie doesn't have any songs rather all of them are in the background. Karan said: ''This time there's no It's the time to disco and Where's the party tonight. But there's guts, soul and heart in the music.''

SRK is hugely popular among other non-Indian communities, too.

My Name Is Khan is about a Muslim who suffers from the Asperger syndrome, a form of autism that impacts social interaction abilities, and he is arrested as a suspected terrorist in post-9/11 Los Angeles after authorities mistake his disability for suspicious behaviour.