Karan Johar's episodic, scattered and unfocused My Name is Khan is a laborious and unguided effort with the best of intentions but the worst of executions; a film looking to shed light on a disability or "a form of high-functioning autism" so as to help the rest of the world understand or be aware, but just comes to resemble a languidly played television soap melodrama between people we're not entirely interested in. Johar's film doesn't necessarily earn the right to go to the places it eventually comes to venture off and away to; a film which comes to spread its wings from simplistic and down to Earth roots to a searing; sweeping; Into the Wild inspired piece meshed with Fincher's Benjamin Button film that will eventually come to believe that the marginalisation or misjudgements incurred unto that of autistic people sort-of doubles up as a racial marginalisation born out of national reaction to a globe-bearing event.

The place in which it is difficult not to begin when it comes to films such as My Name is Khan is that of Levinson's 1989 duel Golden Bear-Best Picture Oscar winning film Rain Man; a film that brilliantly utilised the 'road movie' arc to actually explore the general ignorance's, epitomised within Cruise's initially unlikeable character, that are incurred unto people of the titular Rain Man's ilk. The joy was in a realisation process born out of all of that misunderstanding and exploiting, Levinson perfectly combining the element of mental illness and the film's singular stranded framework to weave a heartfelt and emotional film about changing attitudes and shifting senses of awareness. My Name is Khan is no Rain Man, a film about a simple enough guy going about his business in America; getting married; travelling some more and capturing most of it by way of a DV camera and a notebook, to the point we have to ask whether or not the character's special needs characteristic is even necessary to proceedings.

The film begins with an unnerving procession of shots in an American airport somewhere at the back end of last decade, the titular Rizwan Khan (Rukh Khan) fiddles with the pebbles he holds and mutters to himself as airport security pat people down prior to a flight boarding; the construction of the sequence designed to alienate us from Kahn, designed to misinterpret him; to fear him. When he's pulled up for making a snap remark about the then President George W. Bush, it turns out the kid is anything but a terrorist and is just, in the eyes of homeland security, a simpleton there to be mocked. The sequence goes a long way in trying to encapsulate the misthinkings and misrepresentations that the general outlook on a man of Khan's disposition consists of; the later reveals showing us all up for being so ambivalent in the first place.

Prior to his journeying of the globe so as to try and meet Bush for reasons that later become clearer, Khan had a life at the very beginning of the decade just past; the passing of his beloved mother in native India pushing him off out to San Fransisco so as to work with his successful businessman brother Zakir. There are a lot of early Asperger's 'symptom' sequences, a montage of sorts establishing Khan's tendencies even at a very early age to succumb to what the condition demands: the sharp, effective memorising and ability to recite reams of information on menial things; the hatred of noise, large expansive events and big crowds and the ability to state precise figures and stats that he may have read – Khan's airport-based babblings on specific flight details, for instance, a typical symptom in action; an event designed to highlight blunt ramifications of the condition but really just calling to mind that of Hoffman's own Qantas related murmurings in the aforementioned Rain Man.

Once there, the meeting with a young beautician named Mandira (Kajol) gives way to all manner of wacky encounters; one fleeting moment of interest sees them stand in a coastal park and speak freely, the city's high-rises dominating Mandira's background suggesting an already prominent integration with society as well as an unsuppressed and 'free' existence amidst all the buildings and such; Khan's is quite simply Alcatraz island jail, a highlighting of how his condition close to all but literally "imprisons" him, in this sense. One thing leads to another and they are married, the garnering of a step son in Sameer (Makaar) another addition to proceedings when it is established few men other than Khan would be able to act as such an effective father; an early example of Khan using his syndrome to win a prize where all other mentors have failed with young Sameer a slow bringing of the man's condition around so as to instill degrees of likeliness or usefulness to the man.

Johar's film is too scatty in tone and content to truly get excited about, the film is rabid and kooky but then highly solemn as it brings everything back down several gears for certain instances. Somewhere along the line, the proverbial reign is let go; the horse bolts and tangents left, right and centre each open up mercilessly pushing our lead down each and every one of them. The will to explore the illness is there, the substance that comes with it most probably hiding somewhere beneath the surface; but the film is pure cheese, a television soap opera in episodes stretched out to an unnecessary length and aiming for places it doesn't really have the ability to go. The film may very well begin with the world, encapsulated through Johar's editing and camera work, shunning Khan but it will limp to its finale of the world embracing him in a melodramatic and contrived way.