ASHANTI (1979)

Before churning thru a spate of ‘paycheck projects’ in the ‘90s, Michael Caine consistently awarded his personal booby prize to this far-fetched tale of modern slavery. A ‘deal memo’ more than a film, Caine just manages to keep a straight face as he chases Peter Ustinov’s slimy slave dealer thru Africa & the MidEast when beautiful doctor wife Beverly Johnson (enjoying a cooling solo skinny-dip after immunizing a native tribe with husband Caine) is mistaken for a local and kidnapped for sale across the border. Yikes! With marque names to entice international pre-sales, William Holden, Rex Harrison & Omar Sharif phone it in while guying the material, though less than Ustinov does. No wonder Caine was unhappy; he’s the only straight man to these comics. Even at that, he’s one-upped by Indian leading man Kabir Bedi playing a tough guy. Richard Fleischer, whose talent ebbed in reverse proportion to his budget, lets the guest stars do as they please. (Was the mocking tone in Stephen Geller’s script? He didn’t get another credit for 13 years.) More weird than terrible (see Caine & Sylvester Stallone in John Huston’s VICTORY/’81 for that), ASHANTI is as much head-scratcher as disgrace.

DOUBLE-BILL: More pointless work for Caine was up next in BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE/’79. As for Africa, he had better luck with the earnest, if mediocre WILBY CONSPIRACY/’75, even more on his sixth-billed breakthru in ZULU/’64.