Pun Salad

This is really two movies: a funny, clever one about an unlikely romantic relationship and tolerance. But about halfway through it turns into a dreadfully sentimental and manipulative melodrama. I can't remember the last time a movie whipsawed me like this. Maybe never.

Khan is a Muslim from India, immigrating to the US after the death of his beloved, protecting mother. He has Asperger's syndrome, but (nevertheless) manages to function reasonably well in a job set up by his brother: selling women's beauty products to salons in the San Francisco area. One day he meets the lovely Mandira, a Hindu single mom, and is smitten. Romance develops, and then…

Well, 9/11 happens. Khan and Mandira, and Mandira's son, are soon subjected to the true face of American bigotry and xenophobia, culminating in a shocking act of violence that drives Khan and Mandira apart. Which sets Khan on a quest—I am not making this up—to confront President George W. Bush and tell him that he (Khan) is not a terrorist.

This could have worked. But the red flags start going up when a skinny black kid starts singing, uninvited, "We Shall Overcome" when Khan speaks in the church of a poor African American community in the deep south. From then on, every time you think the movie can't possibly contrive to get any more sentimental, you get hit in the face with yet another setup of artificial mawkishness.

Maybe a William Shatner cameo would have helped.