After watching this prestigious project of King Khan, the most interesting revelation to make is, that in MNIK the two close friends of Khan, Kajol & Karan have scored well ahead of Shahrukh in all respects. In other words, the movie and its emotional experience entirely belongs to Kajol, for her outstanding performance and Karan, for his unexpectedly hard hitting & thoughtful direction.

It right away starts off with the already famous scene of Shahrukh's interrogation at the airport and then keeps on moving into a series of flashbacks. The first half has a slow pace and is more or less predictable. Still, the subtle scenes between Shahrukh & Kajol are nicely written and finely executed. However the scene where Shahrukh shows Kajol, the city from a hill top is quite similar to the one in "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi". Besides this, the childhood sequences of Khan's life, lack the required depth and could have been much better.

The real action starts post intermission, which also leads to major glitches in the screenplay. The sequences where Shahrukh is travelling through various places, meeting variety of people is a bit lengthy also highly inspired from Tom Hank's "Forrest Gump". Actually as the main emphasis shifts onto the theme of meeting the President, the film takes an unexpected turn and goes over the top to some extent. The un-necessary focus on media coverage and political references takes away the emotional essence of the story, making the viewer a little uninterested.

To be precise there are three strong merits in MNIK.

1. One is the amazingly natural and highly expressive performance by Kajol. In fact I would like to rate Kajol's emotional scene with her son, as one of best ever tragedy scenes in Hindi Films till date. The sequence reminded me of an equally great hospital scene of "Sharaabi".

2. Second is the director Karan Johar, who surprisingly returns with a more realistic, dark and controversial subject, completely in contrast with all of his previous projects.

3. Third and the most important merit of the movie is its solid and hard-hitting message to the world that "Everyone in a particular religion or community cannot and should not be punished for the inhuman crimes committed by a few people of the same origin." Coming back to Shahrukh Khan, the hard work is clearly visible and the effort is quite admirable. Shahrukh no doubt comes up with a noticeable performance as The Khan. But truly speaking, there are undeniable glimpses of Dustin Hoffman & Sean Penn, clearly visible in his autistic act. Khan's performance will surely impress millions of his Bollywood fans who love watching only Hindi Films. But for the movie buffs who are well familiar with Dustin Hoffman in "Rainman", Sean Penn in "I am Sam" and Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump"., Shahrukh has simply done a good job. He visibly tries hard to move away from all the above references and does come up with a fine performance. But the impact of all the above three names in their respective roles is so huge that it unintentionally leads you to a comparison.

In addition to this, the writing also shows some major faults in the screenplay. For instance, I am still not able to figure out that which Hindu-Muslim Riots happened in 1983 in Mumbai. Secondly, in the few initial scenes, it's shown that Shahrukh has a serious problem with Yellow color. Yet in the second half he is shown holding a yellow cardboard in his hand.

Lastly in the final hour, everything just goes on happening so easily, which completely contradicts the realistic feel of the movie and lessens its final impact on the viewer. The movies also raises a question that why Karan approved of making "Kurbaan" on a similar subject of 9/11 impact on Muslims in America, when he was himself making MNIK on the same subject? Apart from the impressive Kajol act, Jimmy Shergil excels in his few scenes and so does Sonya Jehan who plays Jimmy's wife. Parveen Dabbas shines as a Sikh who opts for cutting his hair after 9/11 in order to survive the hate attacks. Both Vinay Pathak and Zareena Wahab make their presence felt in their small roles.

Cinematography is great with some new unexplored locations looking fresh on screen. But I found Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music lacking the melody part once again. However, Karan very intelligently, uses only few full length songs in the movie and rest of them are just there as a part of the background music.

Summing up, "MNIK" is surely one of those few good movies which are capable of raising a question and starting a debate. Many of the viewers might miss the regular glossy & romantic feature of a Shahrukh-Karan film. But MNIK is a clear indication of changing times in Bollywood and should be taken in good spirits.It's not a perfect piece of art but a laudable effort indeed from Dharma Productions.