The Ghost and the Darkness

The Ghost and the Darkness is a 1996 historical adventure film directed by Stephen Hopkins and starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas. The screenplay, written by William Goldman, is a fictionalized account of the Tsavo man-eaters, a pair of male lions that terrorized workers in and around Tsavo, Kenya during the building of the Uganda-Mombasa Railway in East Africa in 1898.

Plot
Sir Robert Beaumont is behind schedule on a railroad in Africa. Enlisting noted engineer John Henry Patterson to right the ship, Beaumont expects results. Everything seems great until the crew discovers the mutilated corpse of the project's foreman, seemingly killed by a lion. After several more attacks, Patterson calls in famed hunter Charles Remington, who has finally met his match in the bloodthirsty lions.

Why It's Great

 * 1) It semi-faithfully re-tells the real story of the Tasvo man-eaters while making some changes to make it less fantastical and more believable for film audiences.
 * 2) The two lions are terrifying and make for the film's scariest scenes. And for a change, they aren't brought to life with CG-I, but portrayed by animal actors, making the film feel more authentic and thus enhancing their fear factor. They get even scarier when you remember that they're based on two man-eating lions that actually existed.
 * 3) Jerry Goldsmith's score brilliantly captures the sense of adventure and dread throughout.
 * 4) Pretty good cast.
 * 5) The African scenery and set designs are really well-done.
 * 6) Great action scenes mostly involving the lions.
 * 7) It shows tons of respect for African culture.
 * 8) The hospital massacre is an impressive and horrifying sequence.
 * 9) Great quotes like "The devil has come to Tsavo."
 * 10) Rich color palettes and cinematography.
 * 11) The ending where Patterson reunites with his wife and their newborn baby is really nice, especially since earlier in the movie he has a nightmare where they're attacked and killed by the lions.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Plot hole: At one point, the story jumps from having only few people killed by lions only for characters in next scenes mentioning how the number of people dead is much bigger.
 * 2) Val Kilmer's Irish accent as Patterson isn't very convincing. Kilmer was even nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his performance.
 * 3) Several historical inaccuracies and anarchorisms.
 * 4) First and foremost, the lions depicted in the film are maned, but the real Tsavo man-eaters were maneless.
 * 5) In the film, Remington kills the first lion and Patterson kills the second. In reality, it was Patterson who killed both lions.
 * 6) Mahina is portrayed as a grown African man. In real life, he was an Indian boy.
 * 7) While Samuel's double-barrled shotgun is appropriate for the time period in which this movie is set, the red plastic shells aren't, as they weren't used until 1960; before then, shotshells were made of brass or paper.
 * 8) It can be slow at times.

Reception
Rotten Tomatoes gave The Ghost and the Darkness a "Rotten" score of 51%.

Box Office
Adding to its mixed reception, The Ghost and the Darkness was a box office disappointment, having grossed only $75 million against a production budget of $55 million.