The Man Who Would Be King

Rating:
Summary: The perfect pair, and Saeed Jaffrey, too!
Review: This is easily one of my favorite movies. Huston takes the standard 1930s-40s "Hollywood Empire" movie (a la GUNGA DIN, WEE WILLIE WINKIE) and brings it up to date--to the 1880s. The true face of British imperialism, in its good and evil, is brought to light through the actions of two extremely human ex-sergeants in a remote Central Asian kingdom. Connery and Caine make a terrific pair, and probably should have been nominated (and tied) for Best Actor Oscars that year. Christopher Plummer is good in his limited roles as Rudyard Kipling (I cannot believe that this same guy has played Erwin Rommel, Inca Emperor Atahualpa, the Duke of Wellington, Rudyard Kipling, AND MIKE WALLACE! ), but I should also mention the terrific Indian actor Saeed Jaffrey, who plays the Gurkha renegade Billy Fish (while admittedly looking more Indian than Gurkha), and who has appeared in a number of other good movies, including GANDHI, A PASSAGE TO INDIA, and MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE. Maurice Jarre's music is outstanding. I can't bring myself to imagine what this movie would have been like had Huston made it with Bogart and Gable like he intended in the early 1950s (I love Bogart, but COME ON).

Rating:
Summary: Great movie----DVD has one flaw.
Review: This is an exceptional treat with two great actors in Connery and Caine and a great director in Huston, who seems to have been born to make just such a film. Based on a short story by Rudyard Kipling (who is played exceptionally by Christopher Plummer in the film), The Man Who Would Be King tells the story of two former British soldiers in India who devise a scheme to go to neighboring Kafiristan, set themselves up as royalty and then loot the country for all they can carry back home. After running into bandits on the way, enduring freezing temperatures and with a little unintended help from an avalanche, the two meet Billy Fish who gets them set up where they would like to be in Kafiristan. Eventually, and you can see how and why for yourself, Connery comes to be regarded by the locals as a god. This will have its advantages for Connery and Caine, but in the end will be their downfall (no pun intended for those who have already seen the film).

... I saw nothing of poor quality myself. The picture seemed crisp and sound quality was acceptable as well. Here's the negative: unless anything has changed with the manufacturing of the disc itself, one has to flip the disc over about halfway through the film. That's right. A *and* B sides. While I would prefer that the film be continuous all the way through, the fact that it isn't is not enough to give the DVD a negative review.

Also, there are some good extras here. There's a lot of "on location" and extra info about things that went on during the making of the film as well as a "making of" featurette (only about ten or fifteen minutes long). The featurette is nothing exceptional but it does show you what Connery landed on and how the entire cast and crew agonized over the bridge scene at the end of the film. It's also fun to see Connery sitting around in a camouflage hat on the set with the blood on his face that was so important to the story at the end of the film. You also get theatrical trailers for eight of Huston's films. Overall, if you want to see a sweeping film that has Connery and Caine playing roles they were born to play, pick this one up.

Rating:
Summary: A Terrible film!
Review: This is a terrible movie! I can't believe that a director as respectable as the great John Huston would make something this ridiculous. This film is the epitomy of the idea of "The White Man's Burden." This film shows Eastern cultures to be cruel, uncivilized, and lack intelligence. I went into this film thinking it would be a great adventure. Instead, at the end I felt like vomiting! Being an Indian and an American; I felt very offended that they were basically glorifying Alexander the "Tyrant" as a "god." I fail to understand why a man like Rudyard Kipling is considered a great writer. I wish I could give this NO STARS. John, I'll pretend you never made this film.

Rating:
Summary: "God's Holy Trousers!"
Review: Without a doubt one of the very, very best action/adventure films ever made, this stirring epic just gets better with age! John Huston's direction is so very perfect here, and his "view" of this classic tale is one of the best to make it to the big screen. The ingenious casting of Michael Caine and Sean Connery pays off bigtime as these two put on an acting clinic that is a beauty to behold. Why they have not paired up again since this masterpiece is a real mystery, because the chemistry here is absolutely undeniable. Bold, hilarious, seriously touching and eventually tragic, this is one whale of an adventure! Peachy (Caine) and Danny's (Connery) bantor is infectious, their comradeship and committment to one another is undeniable, and their grand story is one for the ages! Besides the outstanding twosome of Caine and Connery, watch for a truly masterful performance by the incredible Saeed Jaffrey, whose character of Billy Fish is a major portion of the glue that binds this baby altogether. And not to be forgotten, the always excellent Christoper Plummer, almost unrecognizable in his Rudyard Kipling makeup, is simply outstanding as the sometimes amused, sometimes shocked Kipling. Unbelievably beautiful settings, incredible music, and some of the best performances yet filmed await the viewer here. You will, like I did, find yourself absolutely spellbound as Michael Caine's character, Peachy, slowly and breathlessly relates his tale to Kipling, his narration becoming the movie itself. Great stuff!

Rating:
Summary: Connery & Caine HAVE To Make Another Movie Together!
Review: After the amazing screen chemistry of Michael Caine and Sean Connery in this film, it's a wonder that they've only been in one other movie together in the quarter of a century since.

Caine and Connery play pals Peachy Carnahan and Daniel Dravot, a couple of British soldiers in turn-of-the-century India who go off adventuring and find themselves mistaken for gods in a tiny Asian country. Though the men are basically buffoons, it is the relationship between them that makes the audience like them and helps turn this into a great adventure movie despite its lack of big stunts, big explosions or piles of dead bad guys at the end.

Perhaps Sir Michael and Sir Sean may be getting a little long in the tooth for something on this scale, but after seeing them play off each other in this, I'd love to see them as a pair of retired robbers on a last job or maybe even two old detectives trying to close that one nagging unsolved case. If you watch this movie, you may start feeling the same way.

Rating:
Summary: John Huston is the real King !
Review: He began with 'The Maltese Falcon' which one must admit is not too bad for a first film, don't you think?

Then for years he wanted to bring this adventure story by Kipling to the screen. How many years? Well, originally he had Bogie and Gable in mind for the leads, you do the math.

Fortunately for us, he eventually got the green light for his project.

He then found Peachy and Danny in Michael Caine and Sean Connery, movie stars who are also great actors-- of which there ain't many, folks---and who are perfectly cast in the roles.

Moreover, Caine and Connery had been friends for a long time and this undoubtedly helped bring to life the camaraderie between the misfit heroes.

It is the late 19th century and Danny and Peachy, formerly sergeants in Her Majesty's Army, find themselves stranded and penniless in India. Their ungrateful country has no further use for them, although their officers once called them heroes "We fought our way up the pass yard by bloody yard."

Now, bureocrats are running the show "with long skinny noses for looking down on you" and Danny and Peachy are considered 'undesirables'.

So they are faced with three choices: Go back to England and take jobs as a porters or something equally lower class and menial, stay in India and continue to live more or less as petty criminals, or. . .

Well, let's not give the plot away. Suffice it to say that when a reasonable Kipling (wonderfully played by Christopher Plummer) tries to dissuade them from their insane scheme, on the grounds that the odds against them are truly suicidal, Peachy dismisses his concerns with "Well, if a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"

--The Greek in question being Alexander the Great--

And yes, women as well as men will enjoy this great film. It's a not a "buddy movie", it's a classic.

Thank you, John Huston.

Rating:
Summary: A Terrible film!
Review: This is a terrible movie! I can't believe that a director as respectable as the great John Huston would make something this ridiculous. This film is the epitomy of the idea of "The White Man's Burden." This film shows Eastern cultures to be cruel, uncivilized, and lack intelligence. I went into this film thinking it would be a great adventure. Instead, at the end I felt like vomiting! Being an Indian and an American; I felt very offended that they were basically glorifying Alexander the "Tyrant" as a "god." I fail to understand why a man like Rudyard Kipling is considered a great writer. I wish I could give this NO STARS. John, I'll pretend you never made this film.

Rating:
Summary: Issues with quality of DVD transfer
Review: My experience deals with the quality of this DVD.
I love the movie. Not too politically correct, but enjoyable, nevertheless.

But, the widescreen movie has to be flipped over half way through to see the last part of the movie. I just sold my laser disk player, and have NEVER had to flip a DVD.

The least enjoyable feature of this film is a grainy, almost pixelated appearance. The colors are not rich and looks like the movie was filmed on grainy film. I assume the transfer to a digital format was done with poor compression, or else the producers transferred from a very old copy of the film.

Unless you really want this DVD, wait and hope for a new version.

Rating:
Summary: Marvelous and tragic Kipling romp/moral tale
Review: Sean Connery and Michael Caine are beautifully cast in this old-timey adventure movie, set in remote Kafiristan. They play a pair of rogues in the grand tradition of epic movies in this satire of British Imperialism. It's very, very funny, and also very sad: a tale that proves the old adage Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. What begins as a romp ends as a tragedy.

Rating:
Summary: "Now, brother, how can we divide ...
Review: ... three Afghans from two donkeys?"

Great Kipling story (the newspaper man plays Rudyard) played to the hilt, completely convincingly, by Connery and Caine. Who but two Englishmen of their caliber could play Kipling anyway!?

Historically interesting is that Kafiristan (Nuristan), or Kafiri-land, remained pagan and nonMuslim until the late nineteenth century. For information about the region and people, some of whom apparently remain non Muslim and speak the original language, see http://users.sedona.net/~strand/. Some writers on the web speculate that the former Kafiri, who speak an an extremely old Indo-Iranian language, may be the oldest 'nonmigratory' branch of the Indo-Germanic peoples. That the people are tall, about a third are blond/blue-eyed, is also claimed and is not reflected in the entertaining film.