Bajrangi Bhaijaan is cinema at its best; entertaining, engaging and just plain fun. It is really strange that a film with the positive humanitarian message coincides so closely with such a personal dark place that it's star was going through. During filming, the last stages of the trial were concluding and it appeared so was Salman Khan's freedom. The release and explosion at the box office comes at a time when Salman Khan's appeal is being heard by the Indian High Court. These disparate extremes, between light and dark, are Salman Khan.
The story of Bajrangi Bhaijaan is about the power of the human spirit and how country designations and religions only hide the fact that we are truly one people together. We only make ourselves different. Munni gets separated from her mother while on a trip to India to see if they can get the child to speak again. Munni is drawn to Salman Khan's character, Pawan. He is a follower of Bajrang Bali and thus follows a strict code of conduct, such as they must be invited in to a residence and cannot lie. Thus, poor Pawan gets himself into trouble and out of it because of his honesty.
This is Salman Khan: the humanitarian, abuser (ask Aishwarya Rai), movie star, matinee idol, and, as Kareena Kapoor Khan believes, "Salman has God with him.... We all stand by him in his tough time. The fact is Salman is a great person and that you can't take away or change."
For the most part, Bajrangi Bhaijaan is a simple story about a simple man who has a simple moral code, do what's right no matter the cost. It could be said that this is the personification of the actor himself. In an interview for IB Times Bajrangi co-star Kareena Kapoor summed Khan up this way, "People love him because he's honest, he's real and he makes no bones about what he does. Even I have said it that every actor wants to work with Salman Khan and if anybody says that they don't, then it's fine."
Of course, Khan is also a very polarizing character. For all the positive messages he and his films have spread, there have been just as many, if not more, negatives. Whereas his character Pawan learns about people he doesn't understand, his real life counterpart hasn't been as fast to process these facts. Something about a camera and inhabiting a role brings out positive nuances in the character of Khan that lay dormant in his day to day life.
