One movie that Kilmer starred in, but I did not see highlighted in the obits, was The Ghost and the Darkness, a fictionalized treatment of an actual series of incidents involving two man-eating lions that terrorized a railroad construction camp and the surrounding countryside in Kenya in 1898.
In the movie, Kilmer plays a military engineer tasked with completing a key section of the railroad; construction has been delayed by the predations of two lions that wreck havoc on the workers. Kilmer takes up his rifle with the goal of killing the lions, and is joined by professional hunter Charles Remington (played by Michael Douglas). The particular cunning and bloodthirstiness of the lions creates an undercurrent of fear that the beasts may actually be evil spirits.
In this scene, the two hunters discover the lions' den, and come to a grim realization of the scope of the horror they're up against.
A couple years before that film came out my ship visited Mombasa. We were there long enough that I took a few days for a two day safari into... Tsavo East Reserve.
ReplyDeleteSo later, when watching that film... okay, you need to insert the meme photo of DiCaprio pointing at the TV.
I'm sure you must have had your gun bearers with you.
DeleteI saw that movie years ago. It made me never want to visit Africa more. Nowadays, you see videos of lions walking up to tourist cars as if they expect a handout.
ReplyDelete