Some things I liked some I did not.

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

I came across this movie very late one night recently and as it was a Connery movie with which I was not familiar I decided to stay with it. Big mistake. It appears to have ideas way above its station and the plot boils down to being about both Political and Corporate interests combining to ensure that Connery's character's peace plan for the Middle East fails. To ensure this a top female assassin (Sharpe) is hired to liquidate Connery. However, such is the clunky nature of the plot, in one scene she actually saves his life when she has ample opportunity to kill him. Given that this is a mid 70s "serious political movie" a downbeat ending is compulsory and this is ensured when Sharpe kills Connery at the movie's climax.I'm guessing any feminists watching this movie appreciated the irony of James Bond being murdered by a beautiful woman.

The movie had a lot of potential, unfortunately, it came apart because of a weak/implausible story line, miscasting, and general lack of content/substance. One of the very obvious flaws was that Sean Connery, who played an Arab man, didn't know how to pronounce his own Arab name! This may seem a small flaw but it points to the seeming lack of effort in paying attention to details. The quality of acting was uniformly well below average. Movie's solitary saving grace was the twist in the plot at the very end; and a french song (I don't recall the title). Overall, it was a pretty bad movie where Sean Connery was visibly miscast.

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.

It has an interesting plot, and a political message. Imagine the Saudis sending a man of peace to the UN, to change OPEC. Other than that, it resembles Day of the Jackal in some respects, and Cornelia Sharpe is dazzling. Scenes of New York prior to 9/11 are always poignant, and Connery does a fine job. His "conversion" sparks a multitude of organizations to try to stop him from doing further damage. There is much to look at, and the pace is fast. I enjoyed his pleasure at confronting the UN members from the Mid-East who were outraged by his refusal to parrot the OPEC line. There is always a "next man"... or woman...who has a mission to perform.