I hold neither a symbol nor a gun. My hands are empty. Which of you will take them?

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.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Other monks will meet their deaths here. And they too will have blackened fingers. And blackened tongues.

The Name of the Rose (1986) (SPOILERS) Umberto Eco wasn’t awfully impressed by Jean Jacques-Annaud’s adaptation of his novel – or “ palimpsest of Umberto Eco’s novel ” as the opening titles announce – to the extent that he nixed further movie versions of his work. Later, he amended that view, calling it “ a nice movie ”. He also, for balance, labelled The Name of the Rose his worst novel – “ I hate this book and I hope you hate it too ”. Essentially, he was begrudging its renown at the expense of his later “ superior ” novels. I didn’t hate the novel, although I do prefer the movie, probably because I saw it first and it was everything I wanted from a medieval Sherlock Holmes movie set in a monastery and devoted to forbidden books, knowledge and opinions.

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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