`The Ghost and the Darkness” — an adventure movie about two lions terrorizing an East African bridge-building crew in 1896 — has a story that seems so patently ridiculous and phony it comes as a shock to discover that screenwriter William Goldman based it on real-life incidents.
Watching the movie, reality never seems to enter the picture. As stereotypes and shtick keep stumbling over each other, you’d never guess the whole crazy thing was inspired by real people, bridges and lions — two legendary man-eaters whose names actually were “The Ghost” and “The Darkness.”
Instead, you get an impression of something else — that the film is the result of some frantic studio luncheon where executives and writers cobble together an ultimate high-concept hodgepodge: “Jaws” crossed with “The Bridge on the River Kwai” plus “Friday the 13th” re-imagined as a buddy movie. Nothing is convincing; little of it makes sense; everything suggests some other picture or actor. As in “Friday the 13th,” the only things that energize this story are the periodic killings.
Goldman’s script, as directed by Stephen Hopkins (“Blown Away”), has a promising setup and background. It’s based on the true terror around the building of the Tsavo bridge, undertaken 100 years ago by the British with an African and Indian crew under engineer Lt. Col. John Patterson.
For Patterson (Val Kilmer), this is initially a dream assignment, a chance to see the Africa he’d read about and loved. (Add “Lawrence of Arabia.”) Once he reaches the Tsavo, however, he meets strange people and killings start. (Add Stephen King.) Soon the lion pair are mauling people at will and dragging the victims off to their bone-festooned lair. (Add “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”)
“Ghost and Darkness” is a buddy picture for two species: human and animal. The ambivalent villains, those mysterious lions, hunt together when most man-eaters hunt alone and elude all attempts at catching or slaying them. Kilmer’s Patterson is joined by Wise Samuel, the philosophical African companion (John Kani), and Remington (Michael Douglas), a great white hunter with deadly skills, huge huevos and formidable cynicism. Patterson is a real-life character; Remington a “fictional composite.” But here, everything runs together in the same bubbling cliche-pot.
When Remington arrives, the movie perks up a bit — perhaps because Douglas, the old “Romancing the Stone” vet, seems to like these half-kidding, ultra-macho roles. His comic bullyboy excess relieves us from Kilmer’s strangely colorless and self-conscious stiff-upper-lip routine, with its automatic anguish and befuddlement. In Kilmer’s last movie, the much better “Island of Dr. Moreau,” he imitated co-star Marlon Brando. Here, he seems to be mimicking the young Dirk Bogarde or Anthony Hopkins.
The rest of the cast includes what seem to be Americanized takeoffs on the usual pre-’60s British war-movie crowd, played by talented and wasted actors. Brian McCardie is Starling, an irrepressible twit with “death” stamped all over him. John Kani plays the wise African, casting an approving eye on his sahibs. The great Indian actor Om Puri, a veteran of Satyajit Rays’ films and the TV miniseries “Jewel in the Crown,” is fiery Abdullah, the unrest-stirrer.
Bernard Hill plays the drunken Doctor Hawthorne, which may be a John Ford touch. Emily Mortimer plays Mrs. Patterson, who seems to be around just so the lion can jump on her (in fantasy if not in fact).
The movie was shot by the great Vilmos Szigmond, the cinematographer on “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” and “Deliverance” — but, since the critics were shown a work print of the film, it’s impossible to gauge whether the cinematography was really as dull as it seemed to be, or as breathtaking as Variety reported in its review.
Director Stephen Hopkins is a veteran of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series whose last action picture was the flashy mad-bomber-in-Boston saga “Blown Away” with Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones. Perhaps this movie would have been better if Jones had played one of the lions. As it is, Hopkins whips up menace with point-of-view shots of lions stalking their prey and vague glimpses of the beasts as they move through the tall grass.
It would be a lie to suggest that there aren’t some crudely effective moments in “Ghost and the Darkness.” After all, this is a movie where two man-eating lions pop up every 10 minutes or so, growl and drag off another fresh corpse or two. But crude effectiveness is all the movie has to offer — and even that is a mark it doesn’t always hit.
`The Ghost and the Darkness’ (star) 1/2
