He has played a Russian in The Hunt for Red October and an adventurer who calls Africa home in his last movie, the underappreciated League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Now we get to The Next Man, a movie about an Arab minister, played by Mr. Connery who ruffles feathers with his radical ideas and makes enemies. Its a good movie that many have lambasted and thrown in the trash heap, but it's worth a look.
Now if this movie had come out today, the social justice warriors would have accused Hollywood of whitewashing and demand an Arab actor play the lead. But the question I'm sure was asked back then ….."How many times can Omar Shariff play the Arab in movies?????? "
Whitewashing is a real thing, as was satirically done in Tropic Thunder. In that movie, Robert Downey Jnr plays an Australian actor who takes the role of a black actor and is called out by the only other black actor in this fictional movie that was being made.
Acting is about selling the audience on a premise and for about 2 hours making us believe. Sean Connery played an Arab minister with a Scottish accent and for the run time, you didn't even notice it.
