{"id":4208,"date":"2009-04-25T02:40:34","date_gmt":"2009-04-25T10:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4208"},"modified":"2009-04-28T08:01:33","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T16:01:33","slug":"the-man-who-would-be-king-john-huston-1975-uk-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=4208","title":{"rendered":"The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975): UK \/ USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"John Huston\u2019s The Man Who Would Be King<\/a><\/em> is such a masculine, rousing, adventure that you get the sense that he, as well as the film\u2019s stars, had a blast making it. \u00a0When the enthusiasm of such talent\u00a0comes through, it rubs off on the audience as well.<\/p>\n

Based on a short story by Rudyard Kipling, who himself is admirably played by Christopher Plummer, the film begins with Peachy (Michael Caine) worn, scarred, and crippled returning to Kipling\u2019s office to relate to him the story of their adventure.\u00a0 He and Danny (Sean Connery), two brash former English soldiers-turned-adventurers, set off to do the nearly impossible: reach Kafiristan from India to become kings and return wealthy men.\u00a0 Their idea is to train one warring tribe and lead them to victory over another tribe, take the spoils, absorb the defeated tribe\u2019s men and train them, leading them to victory against their enemies and so on until they have helped all the tribes are under them.\u00a0 They would then take the throne and become kings.\u00a0 When in battle, an arrow sticks in Danny\u2019s uniform and he pulls it out without bleeding the tribes think he is a god and the son of Alexander the Great.\u00a0 Danny and Peachy go along with this, and their path to the throne is made much easier…until Danny begins to take his new role as god too seriously.<\/p>\n

The camaraderie of the two main characters, Peachy and Danny, is central to the story, and it is great fun to watch them. \u00a0The excellent screenplay by Huston and Gladys Hill is aided by wonderful performances by its stars Caine and Connery who have excellent chemistry together.\u00a0 When their fate looks grim at one point, they discuss their lives.\u00a0 They know they are scoundrels for whom no one will weep when they are gone, but they regret none of it because few have seen the incredible things that they have seen.\u00a0 They are the loveable rogues we cannot help but like.\u00a0 Also noteworthy is Saeed Jaffrey\u2019s performance as Billy Fish, who serves as Peachy and Danny\u2019s translator when they reach Kafiristan.\u00a0 The film is filled with expansive compositions, battles, adventure, danger, humor, and character.\u00a0 This is another gem from this directing legend, and the kind of big screen fun films so often try for, but rarely achieve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau.\u00a0 Viewed on DVD. John Huston\u2019s The Man Who Would Be King is such a masculine, rousing, adventure that you get the sense that he, as well as the film\u2019s stars, had a blast making it. \u00a0When the enthusiasm of such talent\u00a0comes through, it rubs off on the audience as well. Based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}