Those Minstrel Boys

Rating: 9/10 (7 December 2006)

Using the old Irish folk tune, the Minstrel Boy for background, John Huston made himself one old fashioned movie of adventure and romance like we rarely see today.
Of course this film rises and falls on the charm and chemistry of its two leads, Sean Connery and Michael Caine. They're a pair of lovable con artists who nearly pull off one big old swindle and take over an ancient inaccessible kingdom in the Afghan mountains.
This was a labor of love for John Huston. As a kid he read Rudyard Kipling's famous short story and it became his favorite work of fiction. Huston as far back as the Fifties wanted to film this first with Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart and then later on with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole. Try and picture this story done with either of those combinations.
Huston even worked Kipling himself into the act with a fine small cameo by Christopher Plummer. Kipling who was a newspaper correspondent covering the British in India, is told this wild tale about what these two did in the forbidden land of Kaffiristan.
These are the kind of people Kipling himself knew well from the British army in India which back in the day was its own entity and a great tradition of military glory albeit in an imperialist cause. For American audiences just think of Connery and Caine as a couple of GIs recently finished with their service.
I think I understand their characters. What would Connery and Caine be back in civilian life if they returned to the United Kingdom? No one terribly important no doubt. They've spent time in India, learned a lot about the language and customs and want to turn some profit in it, doing something really big. It's a dream we can all identify with, but few of us have the gumption to see it through.
Connery and Caine give some of their best screen performances in The Man Who Would Be king. This film became both a critical and box office success for John Huston, his first really big smash hit in a long time. It holds up well today and will for all time to come.