On the page, Goldman wrote Remington as a wholly fictional addition to the historical tale who could be a captivating presence, ideally for an older character actor, to really sell how evil and vengeful these lions are, thus making Patterson an even bigger hero for eventually besting them.īut Douglas got into Goldman’s ear, wanting the part expanded into a more prominent position, with Remington’s lore filled in needlessly. Douglas was a producer on the film initially, and then somewhere along the process he decided he should be the film’s co-lead, Charles Remington, a badass and mysterious hunter brought in to help Patterson fell the lions. With a game performance from the always versatile Kilmer, a largely sharp script from legendary scribe William Goldman, a killer score from Jerry Goldsmith and evocative photography from Vilmos Zsigmond, The Ghost and the Darkness certainly seems like an underrated gem to anyone who wasn’t around for its original release and has stumbled upon it on Hulu. What begins as a somewhat stuffy throwback with casual anticolonial undertones morphs into a gripping and darkly comic thriller literalizing the spirit of resistance to Britain’s sprawl in these cunning, malevolent beasts. The early fun in this film lies entirely in the chasm between how quickly the natives (and the audience!) recognize this threat and how Patterson and his bosses do not. To him, any obstacle is just a function he must perform, whether it’s managing the labor force or killing a mammal. Patterson has no pride or investment in this project beyond doing the job and finishing in time to get home and witness the birth of his child. Patterson, a military engineer, has encountered similar wildlife inconveniences before, but never this severe.
The story changes when crew members begin to get picked off by a pair of murderous lions. Workers are getting sick and injured, resources are scarce and everything else about the project is ill-conceived and criticized by the locals, but that’s the sort of dissent no one in charge could even begin to care about.
Adapted from a true story of the late 1800s, the film follows Patterson, a man hired to build a bridge in Tsavo, Kenya for the ivory trade. But it’s also a perfect distillation of the narrative’s core. You’re white, you can do anything.” This is meant as a scalding little snipe at the film’s protagonist and his unintentional arrogance. In Stephen Hopkins’ 1996 thriller The Ghost and the Darkness, when Val Kilmer’s John Henry Patterson proclaims, “I will kill the lion, and I will build the bridge,” he’s met with the pithy rejoinder, “Of course you will.