I'd read the Kipling story before I knew this film existed, and I actually first heard of this from reading one of Michael Caine's autobiographies, where he said it was one of his favourites of the films he'd been in, along with Hannah and her sisters.
So I was expecting something good, but what a disappointment.
First, the acting was absolutely terrible. In particular the scene which Caine said he'd improvised with Connery, where they do a facetious march. It was embarrassingly bad.
The scene with the supposed Kipling figure at the start and end of the film were good, but everything in between that was quite poor, the story was silly, even the sets looked ropey, and the rest of the cast in the Afghan locations were not very good. I think the female lead is Caine's wife, who said she was never going to try acting again after being in this.
I was very surprised and disappointed by this film considering Caine's self-rating and the credentials of the director. Wondering if I'd been too harsh on it, I tried watching it again, and my impression of the film was even worse the second time around.
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