Movie Review : ‘Good Man in Africa’ a Daring Look at Power : The comic tragedy gives a jaunty view of the colonialists who once ruled Africa and the Africans who replaced them.

Morgan Leafy (Colin Friels), the mid-level British diplomat who has been stationed for three years in the emerging West African nation of Kinjanja, has the hangdog look of someone who knows he’s in a rut. As ruts go, it’s not the worst: Kinjanja is a tremendously colorful and spirited country, and he gets to spend much of his time drinking and womanizing.

But the discovery of vast oil reserves off the coast complicates Leafy’s position. As put to him by visiting British High Commissioner Arthur Fanshawe (John Lithgow), Leafy’s mission is to ingratiate the Crown with Prof. Sam Adekunle (Lou Gossett Jr.), the likely African president in the upcoming elections. But Adekunle isn’t easily wooed: He needles the Brits and exacts tribute from them. He enjoys being top dog.

“A Good Man in Africa,” scripted by William Boyd from his novel and directed by Bruce Beresford, has so many good things in it that it’s a little disappointing it’s not terrific. But it’s a far more daring movie than its flip jauntiness might at first suggest. Beresford and Boyd are trying for a comic tragedy about both the colonialists who once ruled Africa and the Africans who have replaced them. It’s a vision of a mercenary culture where the corruption has worked its way through white and black. In “A Good Man in Africa,” even near-absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Leafy is a standard-issue British imperialist of a very minor sort. He has an African mistress but won’t be seen in public with her; when he visits the doctor he unthinkingly cuts in front of a long line of black patients. He doesn’t involve himself in the culture of Kinjanja in any real way.

When Fanshawe’s servant is struck and killed by lightning, the Africans in his employ refuse to have her body moved from the front of his house until one of their tribal spirit leaders appeases the gods. Leafy can’t comprehend this ritual. Neither, of course, can Fanshawe, who is a high parody of imperialist nincompoopery. (Lithgow doesn’t overdo the archness. He’s just being accurate.)

Leafy and Fanshawe live in the teeming, brightly colored thick of things and yet they are apart from their surroundings--that’s the source of the film’s comedy and tragedy. And ultimately Adekunle is apart from his people too. He just talks a better game.

The only resolute man in Kinjanja--the only incorruptible person we see--is the Scots doctor Alex Murray, played by Sean Connery. It’s one of the most perfectly cast roles Connery has ever had: He even gets to play golf with the rich earth tones of Africa as his backdrop. Murray is a deliberately heroic, larger-than-life character; he’s in the movie to test Leafy’s resolve but he’s also our guide through the thickets of political intrigue in Kinjanja. His worldly cynicism cuts through the maneuverings and posturings of both the Brits and the Africans, and he enjoys taunting them both.

If Leafy’s transformation from a drowsy rake to a man of principle had been fully accomplished, “A Good Man in Africa” might have been great. But despite Friels considerable gifts, the filmmakers don’t really shape his ascent; we don’t quite spot in him the emotional resources that are called upon in the end. And the rollickiness of Beresford’s style is a shade too goofy for the depths he’s also trying to plumb. Sections of the film are like Graham Greene or Evelyn Waugh as reimagined by Blake Edwards. (Not a terrible combo by any means.)

What complicates the assessment is that a lot of this goofiness is integral to the story. The collisions of cultures may have many sorrowing effects on the Africans (most of which we don’t see), but they also produce a state of high levity. Power--and the loss of it--turns the ruling class of both camps into caricatures of themselves.

Because he is above the allurements of power politics, only Dr. Murray is not a figure of fun. He’s been in Africa for more than 20 years and he’s planning to leave--to Portugal, perhaps--but he has a sense of what has been lost in his adopted country. He’s the Good Man in Africa and the film does justice to his goodness. It doesn’t soften it.

* MPAA rating: R, for language and sexuality. Times guidelines: It includes a scene of a woman being electrocuted and mild sex play.

‘A Good Man in Africa’

Colin Friels: Morgan Leafy

John Lithgow: Arthur Fanshawe

Louis Gossett Jr.: Adekunle

Sean Connery: Dr. Alex Murray

A Gramercy Pictures release. Director Bruce Beresford. Producers John Fiedler, Mark Tarlov. Executive producers Joe Caracciolo Jr., Avi Lerner, Sharon Harel, Jane Barclay. Screenplay by William Boyd. Cinematographer Andrezj Bartkowiak. Editor Jim Clark. Costumes Rosemary Burrows. Production design Herbert Pinter. Set decorator Vic Botha. Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.