Nigahen - Nagina part 2 (Harmesh Malhotra, 1989)
I may as well tell you right now - apart from the awesome addition of Sunny Deol, Nigahen is nowhere near as good as Nagina.
Nobody has ever, EVER, hammed as offensively as Anupam Kher hams it up as Gorakhnath the Tantrik in Nigahen. There’s a face Sunny Deol makes that sums up the sheer “WTF is he doing?” nature of Kher's performance,
It’s…really disturbing, and not in the good horror movie way disturbing. It’s more along the lines of “SERIOUSLY, THIS GUY RUNS AN ACTING SCHOOL?!” disturbing.
This face.
which not only incorporates sheer, overenthusiastic over-acting of the likes NEVER SEEN BEFORE from Mr Kher, but one of the WORST WIGS EVER TO GRACE THE BOLLYWOOD SCREENS, Gorakhnath mumbling incoherently to himself like a lunatic (COMPLETE WITH extreme close-ups on his hammy, hammy face), plus, to top it all off, what I can only assume was a character choice or an instruction from the director: seriously excessive, copious sweating.
I think this picture sums it up best. And believe it or not, this is UNDERSTATING things.
To be fair to Mr Kher though – the film – sequel to the CLASSIC Nagina – is a bit of a schlocky ham-fest all round, enjoyable in a campy, this is nuts with tacky snakes with laser eyes effects way,
and the story is…shall we say “far from grittily realistic”? Basically, lunatic tantric Gorakhnath (the aforementioned Mr Kher) picks up where Amrish Puri left off in Nagina (in fact, he worships a creepy statue of Amrish Puri and screams out his name: “Bhairav! Bhairav! Bhairav!” every time he gets a little overexcited, which is EVERY FIVE SECONDS).
So anyway, with his guru Ol’ Crazy Eyes left dead at the end of Nagina (uhhh, spoiler alert?), Gorakhnath is left searching for the magical gemstone, guarded by the snake gods, which, if he can JUST GET HIS SWEATY HANDS ON IT, will give him the power to DESTROY THE WHOLE FREAKING WORLD.
I mean, what magical snake worth its salt DOESN'T have laser eyes?
Imagine waking up and finding this glaring at you from the end of your bed.
Or worse - THIS.
The problem for sweaty, loony Gorakhnath, apart from the fact he is OBVIOUSLY suffering some kind of mania and a gland problem, is those PESKY SNAKES. And more specifically: the daughter of the original snake princess (…and Rishi Kapoor…soooo- half woman, half snake?)
and the very weapon he developed to DEAL with the pesky snake-issue, his very own SNAKE BOY.
Her name is Neelam. Pretty, na? Like her FREAKY GLOWING BLUE EYES.
For a snake, he's certainly pretty HOT.
Nigahen lacks the genuine spookiness and romantic yearning of the first film, plus – GUTTED – Sridevi ISN’T EVEN A SNAKE WOMAN – she just appears to be able to communicate with them (as the daughter of a snake woman) and her eyes glow freaky blue sometimes. Pretty much EVERYONE is on the ham train, probably just trying, unsuccessfully, to keep up with that lunatic Anupam – MY GOD, WHAT WAS THE MAN ON?
The best thing – apart from Sridevi, obviously, who still rocks, and Pran, who is Prantastic – is that Sunny Deol:
1. IS A SNAKE MAN stolen by Anupam Kher at 7 years old as a boy, then TURNED INTO A SNAKE AND KEPT IN A BOX FOR 15 YEARS. This amazingly did not do him any apparent emotional/mental damage. Nor did it wreck his looks. Sunny the snake-man remains sssssssmokin’.
He's so hot, he even gets the subtitles in a fluster.
2. is the one shining beacon of understated performance in a film filled with bad wigs, glowing laser eyes, ham ham ham ham ham,
and just pure unadulterated camp. Sunny is the NORMAL ONE and he’s the freaking SNAKE BOY. And he's out to get even.
To whom are you referring, madam?
3. KICKS ANUPAM'S ASS. I cannot overemphasise how freaking bad Anupam Kher’s performance is in this film. He is…awful. And so, so annoying. And just when you think “I guess this is the one film where Sunny Deol is JUST the romantic lead/snake boy” HE GOES ALL HULK ON ANUPAM KHER AND BRINGS OUT THE DISHOOM DISHOOM WE ALL FREAKING EXPECT FROM SUNNY DEOL.
Just another reason to adore the man (like we need any reason).
Oh wait. He also FREAKING ROCKS OUT with Sridevi in this song:
Just another reason to adore the man (like we need any reason).
Oh wait. He also FREAKING ROCKS OUT with Sridevi in this song:
If I can remotely say anything in favour of Anupam Kher, it's that Amrish Puri was a tough act to follow.
ReplyDeleteAnd Kher often talks about setting yourself apart from the rest and forging your own path, so I can imagine him thinking, "Damn, how do I make this different from Puri? I know -- I'll play this as if I've been smoking boatloads of crack!"
(BTW, at the Tweet-up last fall? He took this one woman who said she wanted to be an actress up to the front, and inside of five minutes he had her go from reciting lines to completely and utterly believable. It was impressive.)
He certainly...set himself apart. I don't want to knock Anupam Kher in general because I think he is actually an amazingly talented man. If anything, he seemed to relish the chance to...release his inner ham. And just go OVER THE TOP HAMMING IT UP. It did look like he was having a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteBut Bhairav! Bhairav! BHAIRAAAAAAV! still haunts my nightmares.
I watched a film during Sridevi week (cannot for the life of me remember which one) where he played her bhang-addicted uncle, and it was remarkably wacky. Not as hammy or cracktastic as this film, but along the same lines. He was so wonderfully, tackily, awful in it, and it just made me love him even more.
ReplyDeleteMaybe even more so, because, as you rightly say, he is so wonderfully talented.
I had seen the first film a long time ago, and then this one popped up on tv when I was recovering from a fall and taking some pretty serious drugs, and I thought it was me. Until I watched it a second time, and no, it wasn't me.
(I still love it, but you know me, if I were a character in a book, I'd be the Unreliable Narrator :-)
Hahah well I didn't remotely hate Nigahen - hence the use of the tag "would be awesome apart from fatal flaw". It's enjoyable, but Nagina is definitely the one I would watch again. Nigahen - maybe only for Sridevi and Sunny bits.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, I totally forgot that I'd watched this, so it was in fact my first Sunny Deol movie. I'm a sucker for nagina flicks--I love how they manage to give the real and fake snakes such personality.
ReplyDeleteI just watched Sridevi, Sunny and Anupam as another wacked out evil character in Chaalbaaz.
Ohh Nigahen, I had such high hopes for it.
ReplyDeleteI love Nagina, because I first watched it when I was really young and it actually creeped me out in places but Nigahen just took a copletely different direction.