A Good Man in Africa

Continuing my plan to watch every Sean Connery movie in order, I come to A Good Man In Africa (1994)

Plot In A Paragraph: In a fictional African town, British diplomat Morgan Leafy (Colin Friels) is caught in bed with Celia (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer), wife of corrupt Kinjanjan presidential candidate Sam Adekunle (Louis Gossett Jr.). As punishment, Leafy is forced into bribing an official who has voted down a project that stands to make Adekunle very rich. Leafy thinks he's gotten off easy until he learns the lone holdout is none other than Kinjanja's own brick wall of integrity, Dr. Alex Murray (Connery).

Despite a great cast, this is awful. Even the great John Lithgow (whom I love) is poor her, and Connery who has saved some awful movies, has his work cut out here.

A Good Man In Africa flopped at the box office, grossing only $2 million

A Good Man in Africa is a parody of Africa. The action takes place in an imaginary African country, Kinjaja. The movie centres around Morgan Leafy, a British diplomat and a gigolo who wants countless damsels. Morgan isn't a memorable character, he can't be a role model, but the character does develop throughout the movie.

One flaw of the movie is false advertisement. On the DVD cover we see Sean Connery in the front plan, on another DVD cover we don't even see Morgan. Even the description doesn't mention Morgan; this is made to make us believe that Sean Connery plays a major role, but he doesn't. He plays a white doctor, Alex Murray, a doctor at the local hospital. Needless to say, Connery is the best actor in the movie. He's there only for about 10 minutes in total. And yet he has a major role? Very cheap strategy.

A Good Man in Africa has light, subtle humour, it may not be funny, but it's original. As I've said before, it's a parody of Africa, politics in Africa, the African man himself and the white man trying to fit in. Mildly racist, mildly funny, overall - decent.

Final Score: 2.5/5 or 5/10

This film was on late night, mid week BBC television ,last week and I found it fairly easy going in general. It wasn't complicated at all although in some ways it attempted to be so due to the sex subplots involving British diplomat Colin Friels (who also bears a passing resemblance to Ewan MacGregor strangely enough). Those subplots of course came second to the themes of corruption, incompetence and confusion which I have to say reign supreme in Africa. The seemingly intelligent, progressive leader is actually corrupt to the core and is well played by Louis Gossett I thought.

The film also took a somewhat farcical view of African culture and politics which is completely over exagerrated but funny nonetheless. For example, the names and words of certain things amused me, like 'newly independent' Kinjanja for example. The local currency was the 'jan-jan' (?), the capital city was unpronouncable, and the locals believe in a god of thunder called 'Shango' which in a way becomes the driving force of the plot and causes our hero Friels all sorts of amusing moments. If struck by lightning, the victim also had to be 'cleansed' by a 'ju-ju' man??!!! True, the locals are portrayed as simple, god fearing, useless idiots which is something of a Euro-stereotype of Africans in general it has to be said. But the British diplomats, played by Friels and Lithgow, are also given rough treatment......they bend over backwards for a corrupt leader, can't deal with local politics, are xenophobic and bumblingly incompetent. But from these situations I did draw a certain degree of amusement, if only due to the fact that I lived in southern africa for over ten years and some of the stereotypes and mishaps were classic Africa.

Some good looking female actors also help the film along although the likes of Diana Rigg are under-used. Connery puts in a forgetful performance but both Friels and Lithgow are entertaining. The sticky atmosphere also comes through as does the general hurly burly life of a foreign diplomat in Africa..........I'll give it 6.5/10, easy going and good for a few laughs.

A quite interesting comedy about the British aristocrats in a newly-independent country of Africa. Colin Friels does a very decent job as the Mr. Leafy, the first secretary of British High Comissioner. So does Sean Connery. The screenplay has a very smart satirical flavor in it with fine sense of humor regarding royal formalities, sexual clichés and even venereal diseases.

But the main problem of the movie is perhaps its ending. The ending is quite abrupt and the scene thereafter is surprisingly mundane. In fact, I don't get the idea behind all that stuff. I haven't read the original novel but seems like now I want to check it out.

A very much lighter and more humorous version of "The Ugly American", this film spotlights the misadventures of a naive and utterly clueless diplomat as he attempts to assume the role of foreign diplomat in an unnamed African country. The lead character is vacuously played by no one that most audiences would recognize, or remember for that matter. I found myself hoping to see Sam Neill come creeping up in the next scene. Brilliant performances by Diana Rigg, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer and Sean Connery, along with several other known and unknown actors, provided intriguing counterpoint and kept me watching. As with any good satire, I was enticed to confront many assumptions, beliefs and contradictory feelings. There is much original humour and more than a few tributes to revered filmography - enough to keep me laughing, smiling and/or trying to remember what movie was being referred to, for most of the movie. Comedy/satire may not be Beresford's best long suit, but I'll take this over just about any Hollywood comedy movie I've seen in quite some time.