Ashanti

Beverly Johnson and Michael Caine as an interracial marriage of doctors try to help some African kids when the woman is abducted by a ruthless slave hunter (Peter Ustinov). Seeing that the local officials are not too willing to do anything about it, Caine decides to take the justice into his own hands and starts chasing Ustinov across the vast deserts of Maghreb.

Despite all the warnings, not that bad movie. The pace is somewhat slow, and the acting somewhat absent (though both Malik and Ustinov try to do their best), but generally, an acceptable filler on a rainy afternoon. The high points are the shots of North African desert and the Omar Shariff's short appearance.

Beverly Johnson is pretty chick, but she's seen only periodically (still she has one scene of full frontal nudity, although very brief). And the grimy subject definitely deserved a better treatment. All in all, not a definitely bad movie; just nothing really memorable, exceptional and shining here. 5/10.

..it wasn't all that bad. 'Ashanti' has contrivance, plot holes, implausibility and more, not to mention plenty of cliché and stereotyping, while a single sentence can describe the plot; 'White husband pursues across Africa his hot black wife and her abductors who intend to sell her into slavery to wealthy Arabs'. Done. I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but actually I found this quite watchable and pretty entertaining.

Certainly it isn't great and I may even be being slightly generous in giving it a seven, but it was pretty light, didn't seem to take itself too seriously and if other viewers don't take it too seriously either then I doubt they'll be disappointed. Sure, this will never make any 'must see' list, but it wasn't a waste of a couple of hours and Michael Caine was far too harsh in his own criticisms of it. He must have had bigger expectations of it being some epic which it didn't live up to.

It's worth a look.

Richard Fleischer was a very prolific director with a simple style but he was brave enough to enter films in all genres ("The Vikings", "Barabbas", "Compulsion", "Blind Terror", "The Boston Strangler", "Soylent Green", "Tora, Tora, Tora") with very good and acceptable results indeed.

With "Ashanti" he gets a watchable film and a sort of testimonial one dealing with slavery in the XX Century as a pretty female Doctor rendering services for the United Nations among primitive tribes in Africa is kidnapped to be sold in the eastern Arabian markets; her husband goes on a long pursuit of the slave traders to recover her. Shoot in jungle and desert wide-open outdoor locations the film is sort of slow at times but it also has some good moments.

An all star cast is a plus. Michael Caine renders an acceptable performance as the willing husband and model Beverly Johnson does too as his abducted wife. Peter Ustinov steals the show as the fiendish chief slave dealer Suleiman in what is probably the most interesting character in the film. Rex Harrison and William Holden not at the peak of their careers back then make correct appearances in small roles. Omar Shariff and Kabir Bedi are there too.

Not a great film at all but worth a watch in my opinion. It's a 6 out of 10 for me.

Michael Caine has always claimed that Ashanti was "the only film (he) did purely for the money" as well as "the worst film he ever starred in". Hold on, Michael, weren't you in The Swarm and Hurry Sundown? And weren't both of those films a good deal worse than Ashanti? Perhaps Caine remembers only too begrudgingly the physically punishing demands of filming an action film in searing 130 degrees Fahrenheit temperatures (the director, Richard Fleischer, was hospitalised as a result of sun-stroke during the shoot). What Ashanti actually emerges as is not the career low-point of Michael Caine. Instead, it is a very average chase thriller with a talented cast, exotic locations, boring stretches and a highly formulaic storyline.

Dr. David Linderby (Caine) is a W.H.O medic who is left devastated when his black wife Anansa (Beverly Johnson) goes missing during an aid trip to an African tribal village. Linderby gradually realises that his wife has been snatched by slave traders - led by Suleiman (Peter Ustinov) - and he sets off on a continent-wide pursuit which eventually leads to the Middle East.

Along the way, big stars pop in for ineffective and superfluous guest roles. William Holden has a poor cameo as a chopper pilot; Omar Sharif displays little of his customary charm or grace as a pampered Arab millionaire; Rex Harrison looks rightfully bored during his brief role as a helpful contact who assists Caine in his quest. The film is based on a best-seller entitled Ebano, by the little-known author Alberto Vasquez-Figueroa, but the suspense that made the book so popular is largely absent in this adaptation. Ustinov is charismatic as the slaver (he seems in all his movies to be incapable of giving bad performances), and Caine generates believable anguish as the man who thinks he'll never see his wife again. There are occasional flashes of action, but on the whole Ashanti is quite slow-moving. All in all, it is a resistible piece of action hokum - not by any stretch as awful as Caine has frequently suggested, but not a very inspiring film and certainly a let-down from all the talent involved.

A woeful lack of pace and equally thin if thankfully minor roles for some notable actors (Harrison, Holden and Sharif) could perhaps be excused if the story was told well enough for us to care about the main events. Despite the inclusion of strong language, violence, cruelty, and even some great acting, this film comes across as an insipid, mediocre and at times almost lighthearted look at the 20th century slave trade. Ustinov plays his role as the evil Suleiman with so much relish, you can't help but like him as one of the few characters with any real depth. Caine works tirelessly to try to pad out his matchstick thin role, but is let down again and again by weak plotting, tedious dialogue and non-existent direction. Is anyone convinced that the child slaves in the desert are as bothered about their situation as he is? Is he really as worried about his wife's situation as Harrison, Holden and Bedi? There are a lot worse films, but few with such a potentially stirring story handled so feebly.