Product Description

A renowned big game hunter joins forces with an engineer to kill the lions which threaten completion of a bridge in 1896 East Africa.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 29-DEC-2004
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3003 in DVD
• Brand: DOUGLAS,MICHAEL
• Released on: 1998-12-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 109 minutes

Amazon.com
Val Kilmer stars as Lt. Col. John Patterson, a 19th-century Irish engineer drafted by Britain's railroad bosses to build a trestle bridge over an African river, thus expanding the empire a tiny bit more. In Tsavo, Patterson is instantly hailed for killing a man-eating lion that had been making life hell for native workers. But morale sinks when a pair of unstoppable big cats devour more men and destroy the project. Along comes an Ahab-like, expatriate American hunter (Michael Douglas) to help Patterson face the almost preternatural powers of the two killers. The script by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) is based on fact, though the film owes more to Spielberg (specifically to Jaws) than history. There are also suggestive echoes of Kipling and Conrad in the material and characters, and there are hints of emotional complexity and psychological nuance that make one wish this could have been a great film instead of a merely fun one. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
Michael Douglas, who produced, has hideously miscast himself as a great white hunter in director Stephen Hopkins's attempt at an African adventure. The screenplay, about two lions that have been devouring the African workers at a British bridge-building camp in late-nineteenth-century Kenya, was written by William Goldman in a style reminiscent of such great colonial trash epics of the fifties as "Elephant Walk" and "The Rains of Ranchipur." But all that Douglas can think of to do while the mystical declamation and the body count both soar is swagger around like Iron John. It doesn't help that he's teamed with Val Kilmer, who, as the bridge's chief architect, faces danger with an upper lip as stiff as Stewart Granger's. Mediocre camerawork and flashy editing combine to spoil any thrill of the hunt; the fake environment of "Jurassic Park" invited greater curiosity. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

the ghost and the darkness
I love this movie,that is why I bought it and being that it was based on a true story and the lions are in the museum in Chicago, it was very visual and graphic, but the whole idea gave you of the intellegence of these animals, the movie is a keeper and I recommend it to others.

Exciting drama--good transfer to DVD--but not Anamorphic
This review refers to the Region 1 "Widescreen Collection" DVD edition of "The Ghost and the Darkness". Based on a true story in 1898 British colonial Africa, the film deals with man-eating lions that are attacking & killing workers on a railway construction project through Uganda. The lead engineer assigned to the project (perfectly played by Vil Kilmer) was hired to build a bridge across a river. Little does he know that he will face the biggest challenge of his life in tracking down, outwitting, and killing these savage beasts. Micahel Douglas joins the action about half-way into the film.

This is a fast-moving, well-crafted, action/drama/horror/thriller type of film--very entertaining and suspenseful. If you like the "Jurassic Park" films--you will like this action and suspense (who will be eaten next?). The movie is rated R--but there is absolutely no nudity, no profanity (I think the "S" word was used once or twice--but no "F" word). The R rating is due to some gore relating to the lion attacks (which look very real, but computer graphics & special effects must have played a large part)--but this is no slasher type movie. The gore shown is minimal--enough to give the viewer a flavor as to how powerful and efficient these lions were in hunting and attacking their prey. This film is much closer to PG-13 than R.

Hopefully there will be a future anniversary or special edition that this film deserves. This a bare bones DVD. It is a shame that there is no historical account given regarding the actual events (it is mentioned that the actual lions are stuffed and on display in a museum in Chicago). While the transfer to DVD gives excellent sound and a good picture (sharp and crisp with excellent color), as viewed on my 46-inch large screen, high-defintion TV, played on a Toshiba 1080p HD DVD player)--the picture format is letterboxed, not anamorphic. The letterbox does seem to be larger than other letterboxes. Nonetheless, this DVD is worth owning.

Scary, scary scary!
Here's the deal.

Watch this with the lights off, and let your mind go off to an Africa where animals were still the biggest threat to man. I felt like this was so much scarier than say Jaws that it got into my sleep. This film is scarier for being based on actual events. Of course today, there will be some people on the side of the Lions in the tale, but for my part, just kill them! There is only room for one at the top of the food chain.

But that's just me.

However, if you want to take something different away from this film, it makes a good allegory for running a business. If you create a culture of fear in the workplace (i.e. management becomes the lions to the workers) people will work in such a way as to not get eaten (written up or fired), rather than accomplish the desired goals of a company... But again, that's just me.