Superb cinematography... Sweeping score... Great acting...

Rating: 8/10 (6 September 2005)

'The Man Who Would Be King' takes us back to Queen Victoria's India and the ambitions of two former sergeants in Her Majesty's army to set up their own empire... The story begins as a crippled old beggar gets into Kipling's editorial office at the Northern Star in Lahore late one night and unfolds an incredible story...
The pitiful beggar is actually Peachy Carnehan (Michael Caine), or rather, what is left of Peachy, now so disfigured and a little insane...
Rudyard Kipling (Christopher Plummer), after the shock of recognition, recalls their first meeting, when Peachy stole his watch several years earlier on a crowded train station... He introduces his friend Daniel Dravot (Sean Connery) to him and explains their plans to conquer the primitive areas of northern India and set themselves up as rulers...
Later, the two likable Army buddies tell Kipling something of themselves: "The less said about our professions, the better, for we have been most things in our time. We have been all over India. We know her cities and her jungles, her palaces and her jails." To which Peachy adds: "Therefore we're going away to another place where a man isn't crowded and can come into his own. We're not little men and there's nothing we're afraid of."
'The Man Who Would Be King' is an ambitious fable, with superb cinematography, a sweeping score, an Oscar-nominated script and great acting...
Caine's wife, Shakira, makes her screen debut, playing a beautiful maiden who turns the head of Connery...