Review of The Man Who Would Be King (1975) by Kenneth L — 28 Jan 2012

This is an old-school Hollywood epic with two trickster lead characters; it's halfway between a buddy comedy and Lawrence of Arabia. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling story, though I think it's a bit lighter in tone than the story. More than anything though, it's a good opportunity to watch two of everybody's favorite actors beside each other at a young-ish age.

The story follows a couple of ne'er-do-well British soldiers (Sean Connery and Michael Caine) in the 19th century who decide to march from India into the unknown lands of Kafiristan and set themselves up as kings, seemingly just for the jolly good fun of it. The main action is framed by one of them telling the story of their adventures to a journalist named Rudyard Kipling (Christopher Plummer).

The main reason to watch this movie, of course, is to see Sean Connery and Michael Caine travel and bicker and take over a country. This was made in 1975, so Connery was already beyond most of his Bond movies (except for Never Say Never Again, that one that kind of doesn't count), and here he is in his full Scottish-accented, mutton-chopped glory. His performance is quite funny, even if his character is rather morally questionable. The same goes for Caine: his character is more ethical and aware of reality than Connery's, but only slightly. It's really fun to watch these two together. Christopher Plummer is fine as Kipling, but he mostly is just there to witness the other two.

The movie was directed by the legendary John Huston, and plays like a bigger-budget version of his The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. There are a good number of sweeping vistas and mysterious ancient cities to be seen, which lends it the somewhat Lawrence of Arabia vibe. Some of the big crowd scenes have just an unbelievably large number of extras. This is one of those action movies that was more exciting at the time than it would be for today's jaded audiences, though that's no fault of the movie's. And of course the way the movie treats a couple of white guys taking over a bunch of benighted brown natives is less than politically correct, though the movie doesn't seem 100% uncomplicatedly imperialist. Still, it's a big and likable movie.