My Name is Khan is a film that draws out views deep unacknowledged religious intolerance. It also brings forth most peoples hopes for mankind. The plot of this film takes the viewer on an emotional roller coaster through the life of Rizwan Khan. Khan's Asperger's syndrome is a key element that helps him create meaningful connections with many different people. His syndrome prohibits him from preserving others emotional needs, but it helps him take into action the literal definitions of love and goodness.

A crucial element to the theme of this film is the scene in the beginning of the movie when Khan's mother tells him "There are only two kinds of people in this world. Good people who do good deeds. And bad people who do bad. That's the only difference in human beings. There's no other difference." This scene alone boils down the main characters world view. Sam, Mandira's son, is the glue that holds Khan and Madira's love together. Sam is a combination of both the Muslim and Hindi culture as well as a nice mix between both of his parents' personalities, despite that he is not maternally Khan's son. Sam tries to overlook the prejudice he faces after 9/11, mainly to take the pressure off of his mother, but his disregard for the severity of the issue ends up being the death of him. After his murder he continues to be the driving force of both of his parents; his mother seeking justice for his death and Khan's mission to meet the President and declare the inadequacy of the Muslim stereotype. The viewer's inner prejudges come out at the beginning of the film, before they know of Khan's Asperger's Syndrome, when Khan is taken in by airport security. The viewer watches anxiously as a Muslim man, with suspicious behavior go through security at a terminal. The directors does a great job at not reviling Khan's real nature until the end of the screen. The audience watches Khan be unethically treated, physically and verbally, by the CTA officers. The fact that this film even exists opened my eyes to the severity of this Nations treatment of its Muslin citizen's post 9/11. The song We Shall Over Come was a signature melody that incorporated the nature of Khan generosity and the persistence he showed throughout the film. This song played when; the Muslim community showed up to rebuild The Church of the Rock, Mandira finally got a job after 9/11, The Church of the Rock is finally rebuilt, Mandira hold the "Justice for Sam" sign on the soccer field, and song by Khan and Mandira as they look out onto San Francisco.

This film has a great mix of many different aspects of genres I enjoy; suspense, drama, comedy and romance. The director does a great job at making the audience view Khan as a terrorist in the beginning of the film, and spends the rest of the film proving how wrong and deadly assumptions can be. The past to present filming technique confused me at first, but once I was into the movie I realized the pattern the director was taking and I appreciated it. I really liked that Khan and Mandira mainly spoke there native langue in each other, mainly because it made their relationship and culture seem authentic and genuine. My main critic is the films length, from my experience in India they take a mid-movie intermission, which makes the movies length seem reasonable. However, barely any Hollywood movies run almost three hours, so perhaps my critic is ethnocentric.

The good vs. bad theme plays into most of the grouping of the film. Khan and his brother are a good example, Khan demonstrates tolerance, love, and kindness the opposite attributes his brother holds. Another grouping of good and bad would be the female Indian FBI agent and the white male FBI agent. There are also many religious examples of Hindus and Muslims. The primary example would be Khan and Mandira, but there is also Mandira and her sister in-law, the Hindu hotel owner and Khan, finally Khan and the Doctor from the temple. A large majority of the "bad" people in this movie are white Americans, while the people who help Khan the most tend to be Indian or American racial minorities. This induction shows that oppressed groups can help themselves.

Most films that have handy capable leading characters are uplifting and empowering; My Name Is Khan is therefore uplifting and empowering. This filmed broadened my perspective of individuals who are handy capable, I never though in depth about how a person with Asperger's could constructively function in socially. This films message of acceptance and love will soon not be forgotten by its viewer.