“The Ghost and the Darkness,” a 1996 survival-adventure film, extols the guts required to challenge brutal aggressors amid crushing odds. It draws on the real-life African wilderness story of British colonial army officer John Henry Patterson, which was captured in his book “The Man-eaters of Tsavo.”
In 1898, British civil projects financier Robert Beaumont (Tom Wilkinson) commissions military engineer Lt. Col. Patterson (Val Kilmer) to build a railroad bridge across the Tsavo River in Kenya. There’s a catch, though.




