The Ghost and the Darkness

John Chard7/10

Jan 27, 2019

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Oh, you're right. The devil has come to Tsavo. Look at me, I am the devil. The Ghost and the Darkness is directed by Stephen Hopkins and written by William Goldman. It stars Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas, Tom Wilkinson, John Kani, Bernard Hill, Brian McCardie and Emily Mortimer. Music is by Jerry Goldsmith and cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond. Tsavo, Kenya and a bridge engineer teams up with an experienced professional hunter to hunt for two lions that have been attacking local construction workers. As is often the case, one should seek out the real stories that are involved in this retelling of the real instances involving the Tsavo Lions The story itself is awash with mysticism, the lions (Ghost and Darkness) act as some sort of supernatural beings, who we are told are offing the native folk purely for pleasure. There's an odd juxtaposition with this, in that in the midst of colonialism and macho posturing, the hunters of felines are forgivable because they are defenders of mankind - even though we know that man hunts the great feline beasts for fun regardless of this particular situation. Various stereotypes fil out the screenplay, though not as to be insulting, but you feel that the pic as first envisaged would have had more to say on political frontage and period turmoil. It basically all ends up as a creature feature, two great white hunters facing town the monstrous enemy as their very lives become perilous by the hour. The attack sequences are nicely staged, wonderfully primal in fact, ensuring that what the pic lacks in intelligent narrative worth it makes up for with thrills and genuine nervy suspense. So with Zsigmond providing some lovely African postcard lensing, and Goldsmith adding music that powerfully bounces around the locales, the tech credits are ensuring our eyes and ears are suitably stoked. One key character's story arc is stupidly given short shrift, annoyingly so and coming off like someone ran out of time to either write or perform something else, and the uneven feel to it all tends to gnaw away at the enjoyment factor. Yet in spite of the flaws and unfulfilled promise there's a nice old fashioned feel to it, something that seems to have engaged the movie loving public more than it does the pro critics. Interesting that. 6.5/10

sykobanana9/10

Jan 2, 2021

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I loved this movie when I got to see it when it was first released. Based on a true story (in fact the only part that was made up for is the lions' den scene), this movie breathes Africa due to the incredible cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond. Africa is as bright and as amazing in this film as it is in person. There is no CGI, only real, trained lions and real effects. Set during the European colonialisation of Africa, we focus on the British need to complete a railway bridge across a small river which is complicated by 2 lions who seem to hunt for fun, not just food. Even now, 25 years after it was made I still love this movie. And even knowing its plot by heart, I still clench a little and hold my breath a bit - the tension during the climatic scenes is that good. All of the leads give good performances, but Michael Douglas is the stand out with his grizzled big-game hunter persona mixed with the "action-man" persona that he honed in his 1980s films like Romancing the Stone. The only part that falls short is the underwhelming score by Goldsmith which just reeks of missed opportunities - there is no real leitmotifs or even hints of adventure or Africa. But that aside, this is a great movie looking into an incredible story in one of lesser known parts of the massive African continent. This is a movie who's story stays with you, much like Africa itself does. I love this movie.

Filipe Manuel Neto7/10

Dec 26, 2023

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**Overall, a good African adventure film.** Overall, I liked this film. Africa has always held a fascination for Europeans, and anyone who has lived there will certainly recognize that it leaves a mark, a kind of spell or enchantment. Anyone who is there for a while never forgets Africa, and always brings with them a little bit of this magnificent and martyred continent. The film manages to give a flavor of the wild enchantment of Africa, especially the natural beauty that hides in its most untouched regions. And that leads us to talk about the production and visuals of this film, which are simply beautiful and transport us very easily to the time portrayed. I'm not an expert, but I didn't notice any glaring errors, apart from some props that seemed too modern for the year 1896. Being a film that takes place during the British colonization of the African interior, it is naturally told from the European perspective, with the construction of a railway line being described as an authentic feat of engineering and courage of the English colonizers, determined to unite the continent from Cairo to the Cape despite the ambitions and demands of other governments, such as Belgium or even Portugal, who opposed the project. The cinematography is beautiful, the images use warm colors and the landscapes chosen as the location for filming couldn't be more beautiful. The sets, costumes and effects used in the film meet all the requirements and give us an additional touch of style and elegance. As for the cast, we have some positive points and some downright negative points to take into account. On the one hand, Val Kilmer doesn't seem to have the necessary strength for the character he was given. He would have been much more effective in a role that didn't require so much action and physical effort. Still, he seems sufficiently credible to me as an engineer who goes to Africa for work and finds himself in a situation for which he was not at all prepared and in which he will have to fight to stay alive. The actor, it must be said, really seems to be in a pitiful state all the time, and I suspect that the weather was one of the reasons that led to so much obvious wear and tear. Tom Wilkinson, Henry Cele and John Kani are worthy additions who raise the overall quality of the cast and prevent this from being a one-man film. Unfortunately, I hated seeing Michael Douglas here. In addition to his character being an authentic egoic self-praise, it was invented just to satisfy this actor's desire to appear where he had no space or place. Being an adventure film where we deal with animals that eat people, it would be a little predictable to have high doses of gore and broken bodies. However, the film is quite calm and does not show us scenes that are really bloody. The script is something that we need to develop a little. The story of this film is solidly based on an incident that took place in Tsavo, Kenya, in which a pair of local lions (not at all like the ones used in the film, as the Tsavo lion does not have a mane) began massacring the bridge workers who were carrying them. British were building, causing dozens of deaths. However, it is not a faithful portrayal of events. Of course, there is a certain amount of space to create, and I would place all the wild and crazy action scenes within this level of creativity inherent to any film. What I cannot accept is the subversion of the facts that happens when the character of the beast hunter played by Douglas is introduced. This character did not exist, the two lions were killed without help by John Henry Patterson, or at least he claimed so.