Thwarted in my previous snake-movie viewing attempt by Sky Entertainment’s poor quality control, I moved on to this long-overdue-for-watching one and was much happier in any case. Not only is heroine Neelam not smacked in the face every other minute (although her father does want to kill her at one point, but he is Amrish Puri so it’s to be expected); but there are a lot more snakes and Aruna Irani (or her representative) lactates onscreen. She also (a la Smita Patil before her) sets out to pump her newborn son full of hatred, albeit somewhat less successfully, possibly because Jackie Shroff doesn’t have to also learn disco. Or maybe because Jackie has more snake backup than Mithun so doesn’t need to be as angry. I don’t know. I just know that I would much rather watch snakes massing in military formation and launching themselves like missiles than watch men pounding each other to a bloody pulp (although there is some of that too).
Pathar Ke Insaan(ity) (1990)
Against an epic backdrop of one-sided sibling rivalry, rock-em sock-em lumberjack action, bizarro world medical pronouncements, ham-fisted Mahabharata references, unrequited puppy-love, puffy sleeves and big-budget musical excess lies a plot which I will mostly let speak for itself through screenshots, because all it left me with were questions.
Questions like: Why is Vinod Khanna in this film? Why is Saeed Jaffrey in this film? Why is anybody in this film? Why does this film exist at all? How did the actors keep their faces straight through their dialogues? How old were the people who wrote this, anyway? Were they even out of grade school yet? And above all, will I ever make it all the way through?!
Agnisakshi (1996)
I recently realized that I have not written about any movies from the 1990’s, mostly because I’ve seen the ones from that decade that I want to (I started off watching films from the 90’s and 2000’s and then moved on, or back, depending how you look at it). Essentially, I haven’t seen a movie made in the 90’s for a long time. So I thought I’d give this one a shot since Nana Patekar is in it, although my expectations of enjoyment were not too high. Turns out Nana IS the main reason to watch this—but what a reason! He almost singlehandedly makes this a good movie. It’s a great lesson in how one actor’s performance and charisma can carry a film to another level than it would be otherwise. The other actors (Jackie Shroff, Manisha Koirala) are competent, but it is Nana’s film all the way.