The Next Man
(1976)
(SPOILERS) In which Sean Connery plays an Arab. For the second
time. His versatility when confronted by the challenge of portraying different
nationalities and ethnicities is renowned, of course. Russians (The Hunt for Red October), Irish (The Untouchables), Greeks (Time Bandits), even Japanese (You Only Live Twice); they’re no problem
for one of Sean’s calibre, all arriving fully bestowed with a recognisable
Scottish burr. For some reason, this rarely matters (well, You Only Live Twice features an egregiously ridiculous makeover);
Connery forces the world to reform around him by sheer dint of presence. So the
role of Khalil Abdul-Muhsen, Saudi Arabian Minister of State determined to
broker Middle Eastern peace elicits a nod of “Yeah, okay, I’ll go with that”.
The rest of The Next Man (also known
as The Arab Conspiracy and Double Hit) isn’t nearly so easy to give
a free pass to, however.
Perhaps it was the success of the previous years The Wind in the Lion, where Connery
played a Berber brigand (who wouldn’t want to be able to say they played a
Berber brigand?), which attracted the Scot to the character (most infamously,
Connery would later play an Egyptian posing as a Spaniard in Highlander). Or perhaps it was the lure
of shooting in the Bahamas (which the actor would call home from the 1990s
onwards). Or it could simply have been his occasionally political bent (which
in the real world has seen him call, albeit remotely, for Scottish independence).
The same awareness that found him make satire Wrong is Right and stumbling eco-thriller Medicine Man. If the latter, it’s a particular shame, as The Next Man is a half-baked concoction from
the screenplay (credited to four writers) through to the direction from Richard
C Sarafian (one of those co-writers, whose finest moment came with counter-culture
road movie Vanishing Point and lowest
with an Alan Smithee pseudonym for Solar
Crisis).
There’s a kernel of a good idea at the front end of the
picture, whereby an unnamed shadowy group is outraged that “a faction within the Arab organisation of
oil producing states has entered into a conspiracy” to create “a production consortium competitive to our
own”. Everything about this group is sketchy (full disclosure: I didn’t see
the108 minute version of the movie, so I may have missed vital plot details or
scenes that transform it into a neglected classic, or at least clarify matters),
but I would presume this is a means of saying that they represent an
Illuminati-type organisation that somehow holds sway over OPEC (Khalil refers
to OPEC as a now-confused voice that engineers dark deals and supports terrorist
activities). At least, one wonders that this group isn’t attempting to bring it down too.
In the spirit of any conspiratorial group out to quash a
conspiracy, they “take steps to
neutralise this plan”, which entails an opening 15 minutes devoted to
offing the three ringleaders, from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. This could
have taken three minutes and serves to establish the picture’s high fat content,
rather than providing nutritious, intrigue or commentary. One of these, Al
Sharif, is played by Connery’s co-star from Thunderball,
Adolfo Celi.
Cue the entrance of Connery, “a tiger with soft brown eyes” and bearing a comb over rather than
the full rug. Khalil was educated in the US (and Shcotland) and, as with his slain friends, appears to enjoy
something of a playboy, carousing lifestyle when he’s not giving speeches to
the UN.
It’s a bit of a mystery that Khalil appears to have been
given carte blanche to introduce is his outrageous plan for a united Arab
world, opposing the “immutable forces
bent on dragging the world into holocaust”. He calls for a new contract
that may replace OPEC, and the
opening of a dialogue with Israel to create a Palestinian state. And he wants to look into new sources of
energy (a nod to the notional suppression innovations in alternative energy by
the capitalist system?) Later he appears to have a rethink when, back before
the UN, he proposes that Israel joins OPEC as a non-producing member and equal
partner. He wishes to be free of “the
destructive political and economic influences which have been exerted upon us
by the East and the West”, that have strangled them for centuries. To cap
it all he defies those who would keep the Arabs and Israelis enemies.
Khalil apparently runs with the idea that Israel and the
Arab states are unwittingly pitted against each other buy the mysterious
puppeteers we have seen at the outset, which seems to ignore western
allegiances to the Jewish state and suppliance to Saudi interests (the Saudi
government apparently complained about the movie to producer Martin Bregman).
There are some decent ideas in The Next Man, but they seem rather confused;
it’s unwillingness to show clear antagonists looks like a cop out, while simultaneously
presenting a main character with a plan that sounds like science fiction. We
see much in the way of protests outside embassies; at one point brave Khalil
gets out of his limo and persuades a demonstrator “Trust me, it takes time” with regard to the quest for a Palestinian
state. But such topicality is off-kilter when balanced against his naïve plan.
It’s been said the picture is prescient, of the Egypt-Arab
Peace Treaty that came from the Camp David accords and the assassination of
Anwar Sadat that followed, but I think that gives The Next Man too much credit. It’s simply a picture born of a
period when conspiracy features were a popular dish; hitting some vague marks
is more luck than insight.
The big problem, however, is that this is a conspiracy movie
with next to no intrigue and zero suspense. We have the cabal conferring in the
opening scene, but beyond that everyone knows Khalil is putting his head in a
noose (“I give him a month”; “A week” counters a fellow journalist).
The picture then crawls from scene to scene as Khalil canoodles with ice queen
assassin Nicole (Cornelia Sharpe). Sean displays his facility with polo necks,
and professes to be a stranger in a stranger land, but having been Bond he still
knows “where they serve an excellent Martini”.
There’s an assassination attempt where Connery can exercise a few macho
muscles, but it isn’t especially involving.
Sharpe is okay, but too cool in a sub-Dunaway manner for
there to be any chemistry with her co-star. And yet, the only scenes that
actually leap out involve her. We see her casually showering while leaving the
drugged Celli to suffocate within a plastic bag. She then emerges, removes it,
and tidies up. The ending, too late, is also pretty good. We discover that
Hamid (Khalil’s right-hand man, played by Ecuadorian actor Albert Paulson) is also
conspiring against his friend when he instructs Nicole to finish the job; she
shoots Hamid and then Khalil (off camera), uttering “Soft brown eyes” as she does so (the title refers to Nicole’s next
hit job, but is also suggestive that there’ll always be someone to take
Khalil’s place just as he took the place of someone before him).
Is Hamid
working for the shadowy group? Possibly not: he may be a dupe, believing Khalil’s
demise is good for his country. It’s all very murky. There’s a neatly efficient
line in tying up loose ends also; the earlier assassins are dispensed with, and
someone is clearly going to do the same to her after the closing credits.
If this kind of clinical
Day of the Jackal approach is in the picture’s favour, it’s about all that
is aside from Connery’s presence. There’s a notable brief appearance from Lance
Henrickson (as Hendrickson), even smaller than his turn in the previous year’s Dog Day Afternoon. This was also Michael
Kamen’s first feature credit as composer. The
Next Man, like several other ‘70s Connery pictures, is bereft of the
essentials in the script and direction departments. Perhaps Bregman persuaded Connery,
coming off Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon and (according to
Pauline Kael) looking for a star vehicle for protégée Sharp, that this was a meaningful, substantial affair. If so, Sean was
sold a pup.
