I’ve never actually read the books by Thomas Harris; Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Whatever that other one is, or watch the 3(!)-season TV series because Hollyweird is bereft of any new ideas for like 25 years now. Pretty dark material. I’ll stick with the condensed movie version if partaking. And Mann does a good job here with relaying a good psychopath/detective story regardless the decade in which it was released, incorporating a decent enough amount of technical forensic details too without getting too boring.
Ex-FBI-Profiler-Guy Will Graham. He done with the shit. He caught Hannibal “Lecktor,” but it blew his mind in the process. So, to Florida with a good woman, a good kid, and savin turtles. But the shit peaks again, as it always does. Old boss needs some of the old magic. It’s bad this time. Really bad, so once more into the breach. And hopefully Graham doesn’t get pulled down into the shit again too. But, well, you know, evil shit is afoot. If only Graham could properly handle his classified materials on commercial airline flights. Not cool, man. Not. Cool.
Obviously the 1991 film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs was the big breakthrough for the Hannibal character. While Brian Cox does okay in the role here, Anthony Hopkins so completely dominates that namesake he basically wiped this film off the map with that performance. Not fully deserved, I think Michael Mann does a pretty good job with this telling of the story. He did the screenplay for it too, so he had the material nailed down. And Noonan as the Suspect? Fantastic job filling in his side of the story, with a great performance by him in full Disturbing Nature. Biggest downfall here besides the odd renaming of the film from Red Dragon to Manhunter because they didn’t want people to think it was a Kung Fu movie, would be the 80s Music. It is the bane of many a film. Hot Tub Time Machine? Slightly Better film without Men Without Hats. A Flock of Seagulls in Atomic Blonde? Same, though honestly it was the bad 80s soundtrack that was an unfortunate highlight for that one. Fortunately, the sharp cinematography and editing here make this a decent enough tensioned detective story to override such shitty tunes!
