Review of 3 Bollywood Movies Post September 11th

Couple #1: First thing to note in the film "Kurbaan", is that it's a mixed marriage. A Hindu woman marries a Muslim man. Call them Couple #1. Second thing is that there are layers of activity, just like in real life, where the paths of varying people intersect and that's what adds flavor to the plot.

The Hindu woman played by Kareena Kapoor accepts a proposal of marriage from a Muslim man, Saif Ali Khan, and they come to live in America. There is supposed to be equal opportunity housing in the United States but conveniently they get themselves moved into a neighborhood that is mostly Indian. The neighbors across the street are Indian Muslims. The Muslim husband, wants to be neighborly so he and his wife go over and have dinner. After eating, the genders split up. Men go off to one room to talk serious business. The women talk amongst themselves. The old woman or matriarch does not allow the young women to say too much, but enough is said so that you get the understanding that the young Muslim women feel a tad bit oppressed and they don't like it.

Couple #2: Another young couple, also in love, get weaved into the scenario. They don't live in the neighborhood. Call them Couple #2. They are two are Muslim-Americans: they see no conflict or contradiction in being devout in their religious beliefs and patriotic about their country.

Let me speed things up. A plane blows up. The woman in Couple #2 gets killed because she was on the plane. The man in Couple #2 gets angry, wants to find out who did this, and stop them so it doesn't happen again,

The woman in Couple #1 knows “something” about the tragedy and wants to tell somebody, but does not yet realize that her husband knows way more than what he led her to believe about him. Of course, as what often happens with married couples, she gets pregnant.

So here's the problem that has to be solved:

• What do you do when you realize that your husband that you love is a part of a terrorist network and you don't want any part in what he's doing?

At the end of the film, comes the question that no woman - Indian, Muslim, Jewish, Black, White, Hispanic - wants to have to ask a man that she married and is getting ready to have a baby for:

• “What is your name?”

The life-changing event that tears this couple apart is the violent death of the woman's son. He is kicked to death by children his own age as “payback” because the father of one of his friends died serving as a soldier in Iraq. In her pain and anger she takes it out on her husband, because after all, he's the one who is Muslim. Why should she have to take the blame for 9/11?  She is not Muslim and neither was her son, so why did her child have to die?  Grief-stricken she reasons that if she had not married him, perhaps her innocent son would still be alive.  He is ordered to leave her and never come back until he accomplishes something very specific. So he sets out on a mission.  If the woman he loves says this is what he needs to do to repair their relationship and make things right between them again, then that's what he will do.

There are several lighthearted scenes in this movie that reduce the tension by offering a glimmer of hope that mankind can be at peace, and that we need not hate and hurt each other.  There's is no such thing as too much charity.  But the theme of the movie is never buried.  Racism, prejudice, hatred, anger are very real emotions that can move people individually or collectively to commit acts of harm and injury to others. When misdirected these emotions can cause a lashing out and innocent people, all too often innocent children suffer from the crushing blows wielded.

What is this movie's most memorable line that is stated over and repeatedly, so that you get the point? It's something everybody wants to say to the President of the United States, if they ever get an opportunity to meet the Command-in-Chief face to face.  You introduce yourself because the leader should know who's he's talking to, and then you tell him something about your character that makes it plain that you have human rights and you are as good a human being as anybody else.

• “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.”

The two movies mentioned above were intense and thought-provoking, but "New York" is the movie that really painted the picture for me.  Just three all American kids, studying at a university, doing all the things that crazy college students do while pursuing a higher education.  Katrina Kaif is a beautiful All-American girl; and you can't get much more AAG (average American guy) than the character played by John Abraham.  Well that's how he was pre-9/11. 

Post 9/11?  Hey!  What happened to that really nice guy?  You know!  The talk, dark and handsome, proud to be an American guy?  Where did he go?  Why was he was taken there?  Are you surprised that he had a change of heart when he was made to understand that he wasn't considered to be an All-American boy, with the same rights that all American citizens have?

I'm not trying to justify the main character's subsequent "I wasn't a terrorist before, but you sure gave me reason to be one now!" decisions and actions. 

But as the comedian Chris Rock might say as an observation:  "I'm not saying he should have done it.  But I understand."  Torture, psychological harassment and mental trauma inflicted on an innocent person who is undeserving of a such treatment, is a hard thing for an individual to work through.  It can cause some people to crack.  Not all.  Just some.  But who ever said life was fair?

Most memorable quote from the movie?

• "I'm an American!"