Farewell to the King *** (1989, Nick Nolte, Nigel Havers, James Fox, Frank McRae) – Classic Movie Review 13,614  

John Milius’s 1989 Pacific War adventure film Farewell to the King was a box office flop but he said he had made ‘a great film’. Nick Nolte stars as a US deserter adopted as king of an indigenous tribe in Borneo.

Writer/ director John Milius’s 1989 American action adventure drama film Farewell to the King is based on Pierre Schoendoerffer’s novel L’Adieu au Roi, and stars Nick Nolte, Nigel Havers, Frank McRae, and James Fox.

Milius’s Pacific War adventure film was a box office flop but Milius said he had made ‘a great film’. Milius recalled: ‘I think the culture had changed and that is why my films were less accepted. I still think those are also great films, Farewell to the King especially.

When plucky British officer Captain Fairbourne (Nigel Havers) is sent to Borneo to prevent a takeover by the Japanese at the end of World War Two, he finds the natives are being led by American ‘king’ Learoyd (Nick Nolte). He is a US Army deserter who has become a god to a tribe of headhunting Borneo natives, and who now begins feuding with Fairbourne (Havers) as well as battling Japanese troops.

Milius’s lavish adventure yarn is proof that a fascinating premise, top-notch director and powerhouse star don’t always add up to a hit movie. The result is a visually impressive, forcefully acted saga that strives for an epic King Solomon’s Mines sweep only to be dragged earthbound by Milius’s muddled, messy script and rambling, unfocused second half.

War movie fans will find plenty to enjoy in the unusual story, Milius’s visual style, Dean Semler’s cinematography, Basil Poledouris’s score and the effective playing, particularly by the outstanding Nolte. But the telling of the tale is sometimes obscure, and Milius seems like a writer-director who is losing his way.

Farewell to the King was a box office flop, taking $2,420,917 against a $16 million budget. Producer Mace Neufeld then hired Milius to write and direct Flight of the Intruder, based on the book by Stephen Coonts, and it also flopped. It was Milius’s final cinema film as a director. Milius recalled: ‘I think the culture had changed and that is why my films were less accepted. I still think those are also great films, Farewell to the King especially.

Pierre Schoendoerffer wrote Farewell to the King as a film script but turned it into a bestselling novel, published in France in 1969. He made the lead character Irish because ‘the Irish are mad and I like mad people’. He said: ‘I wanted to make a great symphonic book on life and death: on how a man can struggle until the very end, without hope and without reason, just to be alive, even though half dead.’

Milius said: ‘I liked the story because it was such a wonderful Kiplingesque adventure tale. It was a theme I always respond to, a guy living free in the wild, and the world catching up to him. I thought if I kept plugging away at it, sooner or later I’d get to do it.’

Milius said the film was his best movie but it was ‘completely cut to pieces’ by executives at the Orion studio. Mike Medavoy, then head of Orion Pictures, later recalled: ‘Many things stopped Farewell to the King from being successful. There were endless arguments over the cutting of the film. In the end, the film just didn’t play. Perhaps audiences weren’t ready to see a white soldier become the king of an indigenous tribe in Borneo.’

John Milius (born April 11, 1944) 

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,614

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