The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) 102m.
Not the best-known film in the careers of Michael Caine and Sidney Poitier, but certainly worth catching. Don't let the homogeneous Robert Ludlum-like title put you off - THE WILBY CONSPIRACY is an adventure yarn with enough odd flourishes to earn itself a cult audience. Caine is a British mining engineer vacationing in Capetown who meets his new lawyer girlfriend (Prunella Gee) for lunch and ends up on the run to Johannesburg with one of her clients (Poitier), a black activist newly released from several years in jail. It looks like some serious exchanges about politics, South Africa, and apartheid are being set up to take place between Caine and the handcuffed Poitier, (THE DEFIANT ONES springs to mind fairly quickly), but you'll have to watch Richard Attenborough's CRY FREEDOM if you prefer your chase movies to have a more political bent. THE WILBY CONSPIRACY raises many provocative issues in its opening scenes and then leaves them to ferment as background material. All we have to know about Caine and Poitier's escapade is that it is politically motivated - the specifics aren't necessary.
The best thing about THE WILBY CONSPIRACY is the wry, lurking humor displayed in its snappy dialogue and unusual asides (my favorite is when Poitier visits a fellow conspirator who runs a dental practice while Caine pretends to watch a movie in Hindi). Throw in former Miss India Persis Khambatta and a very youthful Rutger Hauer piloting his own plane, and how can you resist? But there's more: the film is stolen by Nicol Williamson's laid-back performance as a chain-smoking government security officer who seems to occupy a South Africa all of his own, stramming about the countryside and remarking "All righty" whenever he's ready to move on. The characters and cast alone could probably carry this movie, but the storyline is also engaging. It splits easily into thirds, each section presenting the protagonists with a problem to solve, i.e. a flight from the authorities, an operation to retrieve some diamonds, and a plan to cross the border. It's worth noting that this story would have been handled differently if filmed twenty years later - the fairly difficult but straightforward trials faced by the characters would have become over-elaborate and ultimately unrealistic set pieces replete with stunts. The simplicity of the WILBY CONSPIRACY is what gives it its charm, but more importantly it places the protagonists' goals within their reach, preventing it from becoming entirely unbelievable. THE WILBY CONSPIRACY is also a lot easier to enjoy now that the business of apartheid has been dispensed with in South Africa - it's probably just as well the story downplayed this element to begin with. Because of the touchy subject matter, director Ralph Nelson filmed on location in Kenya instead of South Africa. Jack-of-all-trades Rod Amateau (a former producer, stuntman, actor and sitcom director) wrote the script, based on Harold Nebenzal's novel.
sburridge@hotmail.com
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews