Michael Caine says this is the only film he regretted doing. In both of his autobiographies to date, he says about it that he expects no-one has ever heard of it and sincerely hopes that no-one ever sees it. Now - how can anyone resist seeing a movie that comes so well recommended. After all, Michael Caine made The Swarm, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and Blame it on Rio: how bad could Ashanti possibly be that he considers it his all time worst?

This review is an extract from an even lengthier account on my website at: www.widerscreenings.com/ashanti.html

After moving to America in the mid-1970s, British star Michael Caine embarked on a series of Hollywood productions in order to establish a presence in American film. His choices were eclectic, resulting in a large number of films of dubious, uncertain quality and more than a fair share of outright turkeys. Of these, Ashanti has the dubious distinction of being the only film that Caine considered a mistake. In a career that included such monstrosities as Peeper, The Swarm and Jaws- the Revenge that automatically casts Ashanti in a dubious light. Filmed in Israel, doubling for Africa, the production was troubled from the outset when the leading actress was fired within one week of shooting. The director, Richard Fleischer, however, was a professional and, in his second film tackling slavery (after the surprise hit Mandingo) was determined to create an international all-star cast action-adventure, albeit with a lurid hook - slavery and sexual exploitation. This was not to be. When Fleischer sent his rushes to the studio for viewing the executives were aghast. Two-thirds into the production Fleischer was fired, though he retains the director’s credit. Under such conditions, Ashanti failed to impress the critics and was much derided upon release. A tagline marketing campaign more akin to grindhouse exploitation - "an all-star action movie that deals with the ultimate sexual humiliation...slavery in the 1970s!!" - did nothing to win over the critics. With even Caine lamenting the movie, though popular enough, it remains a neglected curio from his prolific “turkey” period.

Michael Caine plays a United Nations doctor charged with immunizing African tribal natives. Accompanied by his beautiful wife (reminiscent of his real wife Shakira), they duly immunize the inhabitants of a local village. His wife goes for a short skinny dip in a nearby lake, but when dressing is kidnapped by slavers headed by Arab trader Peter Ustinov who intends to sell her to a special buyer when he finds out that she is an educated woman. The distraught Caine spends the remainder of the film trying to find her and tracking Ustinov along the slave route through the Sahara. Inquiries reveal to a disbelieving Caine that the slave trade is alive and well in Africa, despite denial by the African officials more convinced with the superficial appearance of a civilized veneer. Caine is soon aided by an assortment of guest stars, beginning with activist Rex Harrison, who introduces him to a mercenarial helicopter pilot, William Holden. Meanwhile, Ustinov’s caravan picks up additional slaves as it heads towards the Sahara, from where it would be impossible to track. Caine eventually finds guide Kabir Bedi, whose family was kidnapped by Ustinov and sold into slavery. Bedi agrees to help Caine on condition he can kill Ustinov. Ustinov allows one of his slaves, a young boy, to be taken in sodomy by one of his slavers while Caine’s wife plans a means of escape, pitting her sexual allure against the boy’s black magic. When such proves futile it seems that she will indeed be sold to an Arab prince unless Caine can find her.

Fleischer initially reveals an ethnographic interest in African tribal traditions and the clash between Western and African cultures. Indeed, culture-clash dominates Fleischer’s interpretation here - between the West and the Africans, between the Africans and the Arabs. Morality is what separates them in this assessment, the Arab Ustinov constantly risking becoming a caricature of the evil Arab slave trader. However, Ustinov’s relish for the role results in a rich characterization of surprising individuality, his nonchalant monstrousness constantly contrasted to Caine’s increasing frustration and rage over the lack of official assistance given the disappearance of his wife. Fleischer here gives vent to a black humour, as Ustinov refuses to pay extra for a young boy slave claiming that people have not gone up in price like petrol. So too, Fleischer stresses the complacent acceptance of sexual deviance and aberration by the slavers, with Ustinov’s underling spending much of the film trying to persuade Ustinov to let him sodomize the young boy slave. Caine here is the bastion of morality, his conscience anchoring the film’s sense of adversarial conflict. This however, makes for a simplistic good vs. evil scenario which, nevertheless, Ustinov’s personal, even charmingly humorous slave trade characterization undercuts. Although the audience is meant to side with the determined Caine in stopping the evil slaver, Ustinov steals many of the scenes. Indeed, where Caine often looks like he’s going through the motions, Ustinov truly embraces the role.

Caine’s plight is in essence a moral reckoning with a cruel, indifferent world. Where Caine expects that everyone will assist him as it is the decent, moral thing to do he finds hostility and indifference. Hence, when he suggests that helicopter pilot Holden help him without reward, Holden berates his holier than thou morality and says that he only works for money. In this way, the film builds to a climactic moral reckoning as Caine faces the prospect of killing the man who has ruined his life. Here, Caine’s everyman persona works effectively as he essays the transformation from a somewhat naïve “do-gooder” to a cynical world-weary potential murderer. This was, ironically enough, the aspect of Caine’s persona that would be developed through many of his American films, playing on audience sympathy for an intelligent but haplessly naïve man out of his depth, struggling desperately to master circumstance. Caine’s gradual moral re-education in the harsh reality of the world is held in counterpoint to Ustinov’s unquestioning acceptance of his own immorality and his indifference to humanity. Fleischer makes much of the fact that Ustinov, more than Caine, represents a true patriarchal tradition. This tradition, like that Fleischer essayed in the earlier Mandingo, is wholly corrupt and immoral, despite clinging to facades of usually gender-based supremacy. That this dialectical portrait of decency and indecency perhaps more so than good and evil encompasses a strict racial division between WASP and Arab adds a racial (racist) allegory to the film.

This review is an extract from an even lengthier account on my website at: www.widerscreenings.com/ashanti.html