I challenge anyone to find me a movie where a European man insults and throws an Indian off a speeding train and even get a "thank you" in return. Is it too offensive? Nah, it is offensive in such a silly way that being offended would be silly. Still, no director would dare to make such a move.And this is how refreshing it is to discover such gems four decades after they graced the screen. The scene I just described isn't even the highlight of "The Man Who Would be King", John Huston's glorious adventure movie, but it serves to make my point, the film is fun and politically incorrect, so old-fashioned it is actually ahead of our time. Maybe John Huston found a parcel of liberty in the 70's that could allow him to explore all the colonial clichés for a great mix of humor and escapism, and the result is just too enjoyable and entertaining to inspire a negative reaction.And how could anyone snub a film that features the two most talented Englishmen of their generations, both associated to famous spy series (although movie lovers are more familiar with James Bond than Harry Palmer), both tall and strong guys, one blonde, one dark, and both with an instantly recognizable accent. Say what you want about Michael Caine and Sean Connery, but their chemistry is as believable and enjoyable as the way they complete each other, and have fun playing their respective roles. Peachy Carnehan (Caine) and Daniel Dravot (Connery) are two ex-Victorian soldiers, free masons, in quest for riches, hidden treasures, power and the pride from going further than the British Empire itself where the sun never set, but neither did the British foot in that remote country hidden behind the Afghan mountains: Kafiristan. Speaking Arabic and knowing that the term Kafir means pagan, it is very revealing of the place's hostility if no religion ever got there.And this is where the two men decide to go, and they take a young correspondent in India, named Rudyard Kipling (played by an unrecognizable Christopher Plummer) as a witness. They make a pact: to never drink or touch women until they conquer Kafiristan. The young Kipling warns them that no man ever went to these Godless cities after Alexander the Great, to which Peachy replies: if a Greek did it, we can. Indiana Jones was an adventurer but he was mostly driven by necessities and intellectual quests, here, you have two obvious antiheroes, driven by pride, greed, selfishness and yes so utterly convinced that they are in the right path, that we follow them with the same enthusiastic fun. And we see them venturing in these exotic lands full of beggars, snake charmers, old smoking soothsayers, crowded markets and some hints of the British civilization, but there's always more to see. That's the motto of adventurers and that's the curse of Hustonian heroes.I mentioned Indiana Jones but indeed, "The Man Who Would be King" is such a brazenly entertaining and nicely nasty film that it would make you wonder why is it that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is perceived as the one that resurrected the adventure genre. We have heart-pounding fight sequences, exotic locations that go from snowy mountains, road-stopping glaciers, from rocky deserts to inhabited oasis waiting for the civilization to "bring order". It has larger-than-life characters and meek, funny sidekicks like Saeed Jaffrey. The humor is sometimes racist and colonialist but it is done in such a free-spirited and comical way that it is obvious the joke is on the leads and this is typical of John Huston's movies, to distract us from the heroes' flaw by confronting them to worse people. And the two con-men are put in a place where a series of misunderstandings will allow them to be seen as Gods or kings, and just when you think you've seen all, the movie provides a completely new story in Kafiristan.And this is where lies my only "problem" with the film, if problem is the word, I am Moroccan, so I can't be fooled by the shooting locations, the locals look nothing Indian or Afghans but pure Moroccan natives, but it's in the language that my suspension of disbelief was challenged, the people don't speak in Arabic but in Moroccan dialect, so I was pleasantly surprised to realize I could understand the people of Kafiristan. This doesn't really ruin the enjoyment and I appreciate the underrated performance of Moroccan then-star Larbi Doghmi (he'd also have a small but memorable role in "The Black Stallion") as Ootah, he manages to steal the show, and when you have Caine and Connery, that means a lot. The population also does justice to the film, I didn't spot any smiling extras and some old men were into the role, so the whole thing works overall. But it was a little bit distracting.Huston wanted this project to star Bogart and Gable, but Bogart died, then it was Gable with Caine and Gable died, but this film couldn't have had a better pairing, the two Englishmen have a sort of Pythonesque detachment while still being into their characters, and somewhat this film is like a strange and bizarre masterpiece, so anachronistic that it manages to be beyond its temporality. It feels like an older film but the cynical tone is more modern than you'd think, and even the titles, gives away one of Huston's most cherished characters: people who lose, but never without trying, these cocky bastards are full of themselves, but what a price to pay for failure rather than a life of writing behind the desk.There's a discussion near a glacier where the two men prepare for their death and wonder whether they'd trade their lives for another, the answer is obvious and the laughs that follow are irresistible. This is a quintessential Hustonian moment.

"Maltese Falcon" director John Huston's storybook adventure saga "The Man Who Would Be King" casts Sean Connery and Michael Caine as two former British Army soldiers in 19th century India. These two scoundrels aspire to become kings in their own right in a distant land of Kafristan. Despite its downbeat ending, this ambitious saga has some amusing moments early on as the roguish pair visit the famous writer Rudyard Kipling before they march off to glory. This is an old-fashioned melodrama about a pair of mercenaries who get everything that they deserve in the long run. Nevertheless, Connery and Caine have a field day as the Queen's own until they encounter tragedy. Our protagonists masquerade as natives and enter a land where no white man has been seen since Alexander the Great in 230 B.C. They raise an army from a small ruler's kingdom and march into battle against one tyrant after another until Connery's Daniel Dravot leads a reckless charge against the enemy in their first battle against the orders of his comrade-in-arms Peachy Carnehan (Michael Caine) who reprimands him for his amateurish behavior. During the charge, an arrow plunges into Daniel's chest, but lodges harmlessly in his bandoleer and he survives. However, everybody who witnessed his exploit believe that Daniel survived because he is nothing less than divine, a god, and they fall down on their knees and worship him. Predictably, our heroes amass a fortune in gold, but Daniel begins to believe in his own divinity and makes the mistake of taking a wife. When the dame bites him during their wedding ceremony, they realize that they have cooked their collective geese. Everybody realizes that Daniel isn't a god and they sent him to his death and crucify poor Peachy. Lensed on location in sunny, sand-swept Morocco, "The Man Who Would Be King" was a life-long dream of writer & director John Huston who initially sought to make it during the Golden Age of Hollywood with Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart.

What a peculiar story! It's almost a philosophical tale, and certainly not what I expected when I chose to watch this movie (I haven't read the original work). The Caine/Connery duo works terrifically well and is in my opinion the main attraction to "The man who would be king". Although the story was thrilling enough for me never to be bored, I thought that the direction lacked rhythm, especially in the first two thirds of the movie. In fact, I thought that this movie suffered from the same problem as some other literary adaptations that give the impression that they rest too much on their source material and struggle to find their own unity.I've always enjoyed "exotic" adventure stories, written at a time where a big part of the world could still be a mystery, even if it means putting up with the condescending attitude of the westerners of the time. Of course, today, the Victorian Englishmen are hardly less exotic to us than their oriental contemporaries. I don't know what the tone of Kipling's short story was, but the movie, at least, seemed to me to be watching the protagonists with a distance appropriate for our time, without, however, cutting us completely from any identification or empathy (it would have lost much of its impact otherwise). In a few words, I had a lot of fun watching this movie, but I didn't find it memorable. The actors' performances, on the other hand, are (the actor playing Billy Fish was excellent, too!) and they're well worth the watch.

So many people love this movie, and rightly so. As rugged adventurers who are also the best of friends, Sean Connery and Michael Caine reached their career peak as Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan, respectively. But I think it's a mistake to call it an "action movie" or an "epic." For all the laughs and glamor, and the feel-good friendship of the two buddies, this movie is really a tragedy in the classical sense.Don't watch this movie expecting RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, where the good guys win and everybody leaves the story happy and alive. It's terribly important to remember that though this movie came out just one year before STAR WARS, John Huston is miles away from the infantile zap-zap action of children like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.The movie charts the downfall of two men who try to rise too high, just like Icarus in Greek myth. Rudyard Kipling felt that men who serve in the ranks should not get "above themselves" and wrote this story to show what happens when such people get out of their place. At the same time, Kipling was trying to warn the English people that the British Empire would only last as long as the purpose was justice rather than greed.Watching the movie, it's hard not to be torn. The two heroes fail in terms of empire building and politics, because they break faith with their native subjects one time too many. But at the same time, they never break faith with each other. The movie asks the question, can any person really be a failure if he/she has sacrificed everything for friendship? The final "defeat" of the pair is also final victory in that they maintain the one thing in their lives that was always above corruption -- their friendship. The bittersweet ending is complex and ambiguous, and signals that this is truly a masterpiece by giants of a nobler age.John Huston is gone now, replace by pygmies like Spielberg and Lucas. They don't make movies like THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING.