At the end of the 19th century, John Patterson (Val Kilmer) is sent to East Africa to build a bridge which is vital in the race to to colonise the continent. His main problem is the presence of two man-eating lions, named ‘The Ghost’ and ‘The Darkness’ by the rapidly dwindling local workforce.

This is apparently based on a true story, and the opening makes a big deal of this. In fact it makes such a big deal that I was sitting for the entire movie waiting for something completely implausible to happen, so I could say “Well, it really happened so it can’t be made up”.

What actually happened was that lions killed a lot of people while a railway bridge was being built. And, er… that’s it. So don’t expect this to become The Ghost, the Darkness and the Spaceship. Hardly any need for the careful claims to versimilitude. What really matters is whether or not the movie works, and mostly it does. It’s photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond, so it looks terrific, albeit in a National Geographic sort of way. There’s a nice big Jerry Goldsmith score as well, and a William Goldman script, and this gives the movie the feel of being a movie from a previous age. Specifically, 1975, and more specifically Jaws.

The growling strings are obvious enough, as are the lion’s POV shots and the images of something lurking in the grass, but the similarity becomes overwhelming when Michael Douglas turns up unshaven and looking for a blackboard to drag his nails down. By this time we’ve had all the necessary character building scenes, so he sinks his teeth into the sets with more enthusiasm than the lions, and sets us up for the big finish.

The man forced to carry the movie is Kilmer. In his previous movies, he always seems to me to be either brilliant or disinterested. Here he turns in a solid performance for a change, even managing to convince as an uptight nineteenth century scientist. (Dick Van Dyke fans will be disappointed in his Irish accent, which wanders occasionally but seems to have been carefully coached and practised).

There’s always the danger in this sort of movie that 1990′s attitudes will be grafted on to the characters in the interests of political correctness, but Goldman seems to have been careful to avoid this, with the possible exception of Bernard Hill’s doctor, whose cynicism doesn’t really ring true. And of course it’s hard to avoid the impression that the basic plot involves lots of black guys being killed, but the audience not really caring until the white guys are in peril. Again Goldman attempts to defuse this charge by taking his cannon fodder from all members and races in the excellent supporting cast.

And of course, it’s all true. Apart from Kilmer’s teeth, which are truly amazing given the standard of dental care in the British Empire in the 19th century. So as you may have grown to expect from Hopkins, it’s a solid well-crafted movie which will keep your attention and not scare you too much. Given the cast and crew, it could have been something much more ambitious, but hey, it’s a true story, right?

Mild Peril Rating:

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