slightlymad22
The Next Man (1976)Plot In A Paragraph: Influential Arab diplomat (Connery) becomes the target of numerous assassination attempts, when he announces his plan to make peace with Israel by letting them join the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).I kind of wish Connery never made this one, as it is sandwiched in the middle of five great performances (3 before and the 2 that follow)Playing The Saudi Arabian Minister Of State, but still doing nothing to change his natural accent, Connery kind of phones this one in. There is a sequence in the Bahamas, where he suddenly turns into 007 briefly.Cornelia Sharpe is gorgeous as the freelance assassin Connery falls in love with. Other than that, there is not a lot to say about this one. Except the phrase "soft brown eyes" which is a line I remembered from seeing this in the 80's.The Next Man tanked hard at the domestic box office and the DVD I bought was annoyingly expensive too.
kapelusznik18
***SPOILERS***Stink bomb of a movie with actor Sean Connery as handsome and dashing but not too bright Saudi Arabian diplomat Khaial Abual-Muhsen or just KAM for short stirring up a hornet nest in suggesting that the Arab World make peace with its eternal enemy the Jewish State of Israel in order to bring both peace and prosperity to the explosive and volatile Middle-East. KAM is not only attacked by his fellow Arabs but the Jews and Israelis as well for either being nuts or a traitor or both in that no one-Jew or Arab-believes for a moment what the heck he's talking about;or that he may have just lost his mind in him staying out, without a hat or head dress, in the hot Arabian sun for too long. This all sets off a number of political assassination by Arab extremists of Arab diplomats who go along with KAH's plan and makes him a prime target of not only his fellow Arabs but the Israiles who feel he's really trying to have Israel drop its guard by believing him and setting itself up for another Yom Kipper like sneak attack that he's really planning for.In fact there's an attack on KAH while vacationing in the Bahamas by what looks like Arab or Palestine terrorist as he's frisking around in bed with his girlfriend Nicole Scott, Cornelia Sharpe. It was Nicole who feel in love with KAH when she heard him give a spellbinding speech about peace in the Middle-East to a barley awake assembly of UN diplomats.It's the gun toting Nicole who ends up saving his life by blowing away one of the terrorists who was just about to blow him away in the attack in the Bahamas!***SPOILERS*** It's back in NYC that a major assassination attempt is made on KAH that backfired during a both major anti Arab and anti Israeli demonstration that ends up killing 15 people with KAH by sneaking out the back of the Saudi Arabian embassy again escaping death. It's later that KAH's luck finally runs out with his girlfriend Nicole Scott who's actually working for the PLO-Palestine Liberation Organization-after shooting her partner, the limousine driver, who was about to rub out a stunned KAH then turns the gun on him after telling the big jerk, who should have known better, what beautiful brown eyes he has!
manuel-pestalozzi
I watched a DVD version of this movie, called The Arab Conspiracy, a pretty choppy affair in several aspects. Yet, I felt well entertained. Cornelia Sharpe stands out as the most efficient and deadly contract killer I have ever seen, a kind of a Mutant Mata Hari. And she looks it too, like someone you really do not want to mess with, if it can be avoided.From a historical and political viewpoint the story is not entirely without interest. It is basically about Arab politicians who try to break away from the stalemate in the Middle East which persists up to the present day and get bumped off one by one. Sean Connery plays a Saudi aristocrat who as the envoy of his country has the audacity to propose an integration of Isreal and that country's economical and scientific know-how into the region signing herewith his death penalty.I find it notable that this movie was released three years before the Camp David agreements, five years before Egyptian president Anwar as-Sadat's assassination. One could even say it was prophetic. It must also be noted, and I give the movie credit for this, that the motives of all protagonists (not least the deadly female) are left pretty much in the dark. The victims of the mentioned murders seem to be anything but selfless idealists. Connery's character appears to be primarily a gambler and a pleasure-seeker. It is insinuated that underneath all what happens and can be seen there lies a highly complex structure of power relations and interdependencies, like a fungus, that cannot be overlooked in its whole by any of the protagonists. Maybe that is the curse of the Middle East.
vostf
This is a case of a bunch of people thinking they are so clever they have a story that fits the time. Remember the all-around political conspiracies caught on camera in the years leading to the Watergate and a little later? Most movies trying to cash in on made-for-TV 'o so powerful, o so mind numbing' conspiracies were in fact caught in their own navel-gazing attitude.I was never a fan of The Conversation which I find as much dated as others conspiracy stints of the time but Coppola was true to his main character and Hackman was a pretty engaging actor to observe. I mean these conspiracy movies are mostly drowning in the character pool of noir heroes. Lots of questions unanswered, lots of dis-communication... Well this takes at least Bergman to build a movie about such un-visual bases.The Next Man is a perfect example of its time: one political soup served with an idealistic character and an horrendous conspiracy tightening its web around him. Neither part is interesting in itself and the whole doesn't get any better. In fact you can tell how much it will be bad from the very first sequences piling up 'watcha that' murders without ever advancing any storyline. Pedestrian directing at its worst as most of the movie is one pompous accumulation of scenes revolving around violence naively brought under the viewer's eyes.
AD
