Over All Rating: 4.5 Stars
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Story: 4.5 Stars
Direction: 5 Stars
Photography: 4 Stars
Acting: 5 Stars
Characterization: 5 Stars
Effects: N/A
Dialogues: 3 Stars
Entertainment Factor: 5 Stars

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Director: Karan Johar [movie link]
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Not for even a wafer-thin moment of the two and a half hour long movie do we see the slightest glimpse of the star Shah-Rukh Khan. The King Khan is vacuously missing his place is taken up by another Khan with a heart of gold who shows us the world in a different light. Gone is his confident signature (somewhat fakish) smile, to be replaced by the mannerisms demanded by his character.

This is Karan’s best movie. He was able to, with the help of an incredible script and directorial ingenuity, keep Shahrukh Khan from dominating the character he was playing. The songs fade in and fade out like a piece of weightless pastry that melts on your tongue, meshed in so well that you are in the middle of the song even before you realize it.

When watching a movie that focuses on people with disabilities, one is usually bound by sympathy towards the condition of the characters. Remarkably, that’s not the case here. Rizwan, through his righteous actions, slowly grows on us to become this endearing person that we connect with. Bhagwad Gita’s principal teaching of Karm Yog (focus on doing good things without worrying about the end result) kept coming to my mind throughout the movie, which in itself is a little bit strange considering that Rizwan is a deeply religious Muslim.

The success of this movie is critically balanced on the shoulders of three people, two of them we have already discussed, the third one being Shibani Bhatija, the writer of this movie. Kudos Shibani!!! This is exactly the kind of intellectual fodder that needs to be fed to one billion ill fed minds. The Indian movie industry seems to be slowly coming out of the creative slumber that it found itself in thru the 80s, the 90s and the early 2000s when it came to script. For me, with this script, Shibani joins the ranks of the thought leaders in Hindi cinema script writing, Pooja Ladha Surti and Amol Gupte among others. Even the lighter moments of the movie were brilliantly scripted (and then executed), like Rizwan’s shy, face covered laughter on marriage proposal or Mandira’s friend joking on death of all men due to bees.

Kajol as Mandira was adequate.

Now let’s put my love fest for the movie on hold and talk shop.

I don’t completely agree on the number of hurdles Rizwan gets tested under (Asperger/Autism, 9/11, Floods, lethal racial attack on family). And the only justification I could find, it was necessary for bringing out his character and I am not convinced.

I like to see the main characters undergo some sort of a change, like an uncut diamond being converted into a finished beauty due to the punishing and polishing experiences it undergoes. That was not true for Rizwan, he remained pretty much unchanged (OKAY, there was one tear in his right eye in the end).

I also felt that some of the racial (re)actions depicted in the movie, post 9/11, on the brown skinned folks were a tad bit over the top.

The TV coverage of this Indian who is the first one to lead the Katrina ‘reconstruction’ efforts is just plain unbelievable.

Katrina happened in 2005, Obama got elected towards the end of 2009 so it seems highly unlikely that Rizwan, his brother and their supporters were fixing the broken church in Georgia for four years.

Rizwan’s brother had a university of Mississippi on a scholarship (given the time line it had the likely hood of being a computer related field of study) but he ends up being a herbal beauty products dealer. Something here doesn’t Gel.

Mandira’s response to the Reese’s confession is also bizarre. Reese who was himself a kid was threatened and was afraid he himself didn’t do anything wrong, in fact tried to help Sam.

The doctors potential cohorts showed an unnecessary aggression to know who the instigator in the story was in the Shaitan scene, as if the villainous doctor was the only one on the planet who had access to Koran. Haven’t they heard about Google?

Few more things, but I don’t want to get into, primarily because despite all of its flaws, the movie is so well executed that I was ok letting them slide by.

For me this not a movie about terrorism or love or disabilities but simply a beautiful poem on how to live life based on principles and promises.

Mel Gibson might not have figured out what women want, but Rizwan Khan has certainly cracked the seminal code, they want to be listened to /really listened to/, and Rizwan does just that. May all women be blessed by husbands who have a slight sprinkle of Asperger Syndrome spiced into their personalities J
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Now, here's what I would have changed if I was in control.

* Not a single memorable dialogue in the entire movie including the title which owes its impact to repetitions
* Limit the number of hurdles in Rizwan’s path

* Just because he can’t express himself doesn’t mean that he cannot feel or change

* Change Mandira’s response to Reese after confession

* Correct the timelines between Katrina and Obama’s election, which in fact becomes unnecessary if we reduce the number of hurdles

* I don’t know why it bothered me, it is really really inconsequential, but Officer Vaughn coffee cup was slightly tilted down, which showed that he was holding an empty cup, I would have liked to have the cup held correctly. Now please feel free to hate me for the nit pick