Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Robert J. Maxwell A précis of the plot suggests a political drama with lots of speeches and demonstrations of brutality on the part of the South African police during the apartheid era.Well, there is some brutality towards the end, but it's not bathetic. The stern, sadistic, patriotic, and ironic agent of national security -- Nicole Williamson in a charged performance -- is unexpectedly shot through the forehead and slumps expressionless to the ground. Nobody feels any guilt, although they probably should. Williamson himself might not even care except that his anti-black-congress activities are now interfered with by his own demise. Also, his final thought may have been, "At last, I can quit smoking." The first half is positively funny. Nobody is better at indignant shock than Michael Caine, who is given some witty lines. Poitier, on the other hand, is more grim and dedicated to the cause of ending apartheid. Some of the other characters add color. Saeed Jaffrey is a trembling Indian dentist. Persis Khambatta is a fellow dentist and a fox both stunning and cunning. I have no idea why she copulates with Poitier, a total stranger, in a closet while police are searching the house, though I understand why Poitier might chance it.Moments of suspense and comedy, nicely woven together and directed with no particular poetry by Ralph Nelson.It made me laugh aloud at times. You'll probably like it if you like up-tempo pursuits and intrigues.

The_Movie_Cat The Wilby Conspiracy is the second of Sidney Poitier's three films about apartheid in South Africa. In 1952 he had appeared under Canada Lee in the slow but rewarding Cry, The Beloved Country. Fast forward to 1997 and he's playing Nelson Mandela to Michael Caine's F.W. de Klerk in a pretty decent TV movie.It's Caine he stars with here, getting top billing after his career was somewhat resurrected by Uptown Saturday Night. It's an overlooked film, with some great comic chemistry between them and some genuinely witty lines. Stories of how Poitier's Shack Twala was electo tortured in prison are rendered blackly comic by their telling, with Poitier showing more genuine comic flair than he ever did mugging opposite Bill Cosby.For such serious subjects the film flirts closely with the line between gallows humour and overt comedy, but the wit of the script always keeps it from going overboard. At one point Twala explains how, at school, he discovered Marx and Lenin instead of Mark and Luke and from there "had absolutely no difficulty getting into jail." Handsomely shot with Kenya doubling for South Africa, it's only the rear projection for car/helicopter scenes in Pinewood Studios that detract.As the film progresses, the events do start to become more fantastical, and it's difficult to know what's more unbelievable about Persis Khambatta's character... her motivation or the Indian incidental music that follows her around wherever she goes. (A rare sex scene for Poitier sees African drums take over, his own music dominating hers as they become entwined). Similarly, Prunella Gee starts out with a very sensible character but ends up being sexualised more and more as the film progresses. Fortunately it manages to pull the whole thing together with a very good series of twists at the end.Ultimately this well packaged picture is a strong vehicle for Caine- Poitier and deserves to be more than to be a forgotten entry on both men's resumes.

JasparLamarCrabb Certainly any film set against the backdrop of South Africa's apartheid policy is grave, but this thriller is a bit too pat to really be recommended. Sidney Poitier is a recently released political prisoner who involves his lawyer (Prunella Gee) and her disinterested boyfriend (Michael Caine) in a plot to smuggle diamonds out of South Africa (to someone named Wilby). All three principles are terrific, but the script they're saddled with is at times too convoluted and at other times full of holes. It takes an inordinate of time to understand what's going on so the viewer ends up confused rather than intrigued. There are gaps in logic, both minor (how does Caine, without even looking for it, know the location of the side entrance to a building he's never been to?) and major (how does a dead man end up in Caine's trunk?) With Kenya subbing for South Africa the movies has some stunning photography and a great score by Stanley Myers. The supporting cast includes a young Rutger Hauer, Persis Khambatta and producer Helmut Dantine as a shifty prosecutor. Best of all is scenery chewer Nicol Williamson as the crafty cop trailing Poitier and Caine. Directed, blandly, by Ralph Nelson, whose wildly inconsistent output included the great LILIES OF THE FIELD, REQUIEM OF A HEAVEYWEIGHT and CHARLY as well as such oddities as EMBRYO and THE WRATH OF GOD.

bkoganbing I would really have liked to have given The Wilby Conspiracy a higher rating than I did. But unfortunately a really huge and ridiculous error was made in telling the tale.Due to political pressure brought to bear from various world human rights activists, black nationalist Sidney Poitier is freed by the apartheid South African government. On the way to celebrate, Poitier, his lawyer Prunella Gee and her boyfriend Michael Caine get into a mêlée with South African police and after assaulting a pair of them have to flee.But it turns out the government in freeing Poitier in the first place has a whole other agenda. Poitier also has something else in mind, to get a stash of diamonds hidden years ago in a robbery to aid the African National Congress. During the course of fleeing Poitier seeks the aid of an Indian dentist played by Saeed Jeffrey and his assistant Persis Khambatta. While Poitier is hidden away in a modern day priest-hole he takes Khambatta in there with him and while the South African Security are even outside within a few feet of him, Poitier and Khambatta are doing the horizontal mambo. Now granted Poitier had been in prison for 10 years and he was understandably ready to go, still I found it a bit much. The steamy sex scene definitely sold a lot movie tickets, but it was awkwardly planted into the story.Acting honors in this film go to Nicol Williamson as the South African Security Police Chief Horne. He is a chillingly evil man, resolute in defense of the apartheid society and a bigoted product of that same society. Williamson is living proof of what Martin Luther King said about racism being as toxic to the perpetrator as to the victim.The Wilby in the Wilby Conspiracy is a Nelson Mandela like figure who is in exile in neighboring Botswana. He only enters the film at the very end and in a surprising way. The Wilby Conspiracy other than that tacked on sex scene done for box office dollars is a great portrait of the last days of the apartheid society of South Africa. It should be seen for Nicol Williamson's portrayal alone.