Engineer John Henry Patterson (Val Kilmer) has been sent to Africa on a special mission - to oversee the building of a bridge in Tsavo, Kenya.
Soon after he arrives, the workers’ camp is attacked by a pair of man-eating lions.
Despite Patterson’s efforts, the lions continue their attacks around the camp.
As work on the bridge falls behind, Patterson’s backers enlist a famous hunter, Remington (Michael Douglas), to kill the lions.
Will the pair be able to end the menace? Or will the lions make dinner out of the colonizers?
I watched the third act of this movie over twenty years ago and it always stuck with me.
Every time I saw or heard the title, the same images would flash across my brain: Patterson (Val Kilmer) running toward his wife (Emily Mortimer) as a lion attacks her; Patterson discovering Remington’s (Michael Douglas) body; Patterson scrabbling for his gun as the wounded lion crawls toward him.
Even though I had never seen the whole thing, The Ghost and the Darkness existed in the same childhood nightmare space as Jaws.
The Ghost and the Darkness is based on a true story. Screenwriter William Goldman refracts these events through the Jaws narrative template, by focusing on Patterson and a fictional hunter (ala Robert Shaw’s Quint) hunting the killers down.
While I have seen some criticism of his Irish accent, that is the least of my problems with Val Kilmer’s performance. To his credit, he underplays that aspect of the character.
More importantly, Kilmer seems lost as the straight-shooting Patterson. I have not read Goldman’s script, but it feels like he should have leaned more into the Jaws template and made Patterson more of an everyman ala Sheriff Brody (Roy Scheider).
Kilmer would make more sense if Patterson was more weak-willed. The movie might have worked if Kilmer underwent more of a breakdown as the lions’ rampage continues. There is a flatness to his portrayal that throws the movie off.
Michael Douglas was - according to Goldman - poorly cast as Remington. The screenwriter envisioned the character as more of a mythical figure, an almost supernatural figure whose sudden death would increase the stakes as an unprepared Patterson has to take charge.
Goldman felt Douglas could not play that kind of role, and said the star demanded rewrites to make the character more human. I can see his point.
Like Kilmer, Douglas is always at best in roles that play against his looks, particularly as greedy, immoral villains. Consciously or not, his whole persona is a revisionist take on traditional images of white American masculinity.
Remington is meant to be an archetypal white hunter, a white man who has mastered the terrain. Goldman intended this character as a misdirect - Remington is not the expert he is set up as, and he ends up catnip.
I am not convinced Douglas is as poor a fit as Goldman thought.
Douglas brings more energy than Kilmer, and there is something compelling about his manic performance. At times his neurosis works - his Remington feels like a veteran who has been through numerous scrapes.
Other times, he plays into Goldman’s misgivings - whenever Remington has to play the tough-minded mentor, Douglas comes off as a posturing fool. Hence his death lacks the gut punch that was intended.
I still think the bigger flaw is the conception of Patterson - if Patterson was more unready and traumatized (and if Kilmer played those qualities with more intensity), then the movie would have more of a sense of progression when Remington is killed and he has to step up.
I would like to read Goldman’s script because I think the movie was fumbled in the execution.
The big problem is that The Ghost and the Darkness lacks a sense of escalation - there are moments of tension, and plenty of gorey deaths - but it never feels like the world is falling apart.
Events happen which should feel important but they just pass by - Tom Wilkinson is terrific as Kilmer’s terrifying boss, but as Patterson’s failures mount up, it never feels like he is in danger - either of losing his job or his life.
Part of the problem is the context - Patterson is a British colonist overseeing a massive workforce of Africans and Indians.
While parts of the film feel like they are almost about to make a serious point about imperialism, the movie also wants to be an earnest jungle adventure, racial politics be damned.
It is hard to empathize with Patterson - he is here to build a bridge. The biggest thing he has at risk is his reputation.
When worker Abdullah (Om Puri) organizes a shutdown over the lion attacks, it feels like the movie has miscalculated in terms of who has the strongest motivation in this situation.
The film benefits from being shot in Africa, and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond makes it look lived-in, but the movie always feels at a remove.
The movie used real lions but their effect only really comes into focus at the climax - they add a certain verisimilitude, but not much else.
Director Stephen Hopkins has a spotty career as a genre filmmaker (Elm Street 5, Predator 2 and Lost in Space), and he seems most at home with the suspense sequences. The movie looks slick, but there is no sense of a throughline - the action is covered and that is about it.
I left the movie disappointed.
As a revisionist take on the ‘african adventure’ movie, it is damp squib. As a monster movie it is passable. It always feels like the movie has some higher ambitions but it is never clear what they are. The movie feels like it should have leaned into its pulpy origins and just focused on being a scary movie about man-eating lions.
Ultimately, The Ghost and the Darkness feels like a remake waiting to happen.
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