Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The British Empire's steaming progress across East Africa is stalled by two lions that wreak such terror on the natives pressed into building a railway bridge that the project falls dangerously behind schedule. As the bodies mount, Irish engineer John Patterson (Kilmer) is joined by the famous game hunter Remington (Douglas) to tackle 'The Ghost' and 'The Darkness'. Teddy Roosevelt called Col Patterson's The Man-Eaters of Tsavo 'the most thrilling book of true stories ever written', and William Goldman's script begins with the boast: 'Even the most improbable parts of the story really happened.' Too bad director Hopkins (Predator 2) wouldn't know the truth if it bit him. He renders this mildly promising material so crassly, we might be watching a belated Jaws rip-off. All the elements are here: the prowling POV shots as the lions size up their next victim; the merciless capitalist who's the real villain of the piece (Wilkinson - 'I don't care about you; I don't care about 30 dead; I only care about my knighthood!'); and Douglas doing his Robert Shaw impression as the swaggering, whisky-swigging hunter. The film looks expensive and is, occasionally, tense. It's also risibly staged and edited, with incongruous cutaways to flora and fauna, and downright sheepish when it comes to explaining away colonialism.Author: TCh
Cast & crew
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Producer: Gale Anne Hurd, Paul Radin, A Kitman Ho
Cast: Michael Douglas, Val Kilmer, Tom Wilkinson, Bernard Hill, John Kani, Om Puri, Emily Mortimer full cast
Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers
Duration: 110 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now