Post interval, it slumps. The focus, which till then is on a character who intrigues us while interesting things are happening to him, gets diluted by a wholly superfluous romance (and songs, tuneful as a couple are), and a face-off between the guy awash in other-worldly goodness who asks all the right questions and the bad godman who has all the wrong answers.

What’s also very disturbing here is that even when the film is saying something important, it’s surrounded by conventional and corny stuff. Weighted down by cliches, the film often feels tiresome. I don’t enjoy watching Aamir Khan very much. His smugness, didactic finger-wagging irritates me. But here he sheds the moral weight he’s been carrying since Tare Zameen Pe and Satyamev Jayate. There’s a lightness and playfulness to his character that’s touching. In the raw state, as a clean slate, his PK is convincing and charming.