Yeah, that's some dude getting smoked by a gigantic lion. No it's not the bloody out-takes from "Planet Earth," it's a just a picture from the 1996 film "The Ghost and the Darkness." The story deals with an Irish engineer (played by the man who was once Batman: Val Kilmer) and his hunter buddy/prophet/white African friend (Michael Douglas, aka the man who would go on to marry Catherine Zeta Jones). Together they hunt two gigantic lions who are dining on the all you can eat buffet of railroad workers and assorted British nationals posted up in Africa.This is one of those flicks that I wanted to see as a child, but couldn't convince Dad, or anybody's Dad to take me and my buddies to. Recently, as I usually do, I was debating if a man could kill a lion with his bare hands and someone quaintly replied "Yo that dude in "The Ghost And The Darkness" does it." BOOM, suddenly I had to see it, so I rapidly removed some bullshit movie like Citizen Kane from the top of my netflix que and bumped this movie, the spiritual sequel to "The Lion King" to the top.
But man what a weird flick. There are too many sequences of Lions randomly chowing down on helpless bros in graphic detail. Douglas plays a bizarre hunter who had his his whole tribe killed, but it's strange because he looks like an Australian cowboy from Arizona. Kilmer is pretty badass, his "Irish" accent fades halfway through the movie. And the lions, well damn, they look very real, so real in fact it makes me wonder if people were actually eaten during the production of the film. Obviously that couldn't be real, or could it?
this movie is the prequel to Secondhand Lions? I'll pass
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a great movie and I feel that people try to often to psychoanalyse a movie rather than appreciate the entertainment value. The main two actors (human) lived up to the expectations of hunters and it was quite sad when Michael Douglas does not make the end of the film because the lions have a win, however, it is fitting that in the end humans do come to the fore and defeat evil - isn't this what entertaiment's all about.
ReplyDeleteThis movie is actually based on a true story! Check this:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_maneaters