Kipling Short Story Becomes Long Boring Movie

Rating: 1/10 (5 January 2000)

It is hard to comprehend why a director with the reputation that John Huston has could be involved in such a gloomy film. The story really did not have anything to say and was unbelievable to boot. The idea that any group of people could so easily be persuaded to believe that a stranger had the qualities that made him worthy to be worshipped as a god is ridiculous. Perhaps Kipling thought that the people of India were so inferior to the British that they would do this, at least that is the way it came across in this story. There was no attempt to explore the personalities of the two leading characters portrayed by Sean Connery and Michael Caine, as a result, it was hard to identify with them or care about what could happen to them. Any actors could have been cast in their parts and would have done no worse. Perhaps this is why Connery and Caine never again appeared together again in another movie. Cutting the length of this movie in half by good editing might make this terrible movie into one that is merely dull. My advice to you is to cut it off of any list of movies your planning to see.