Red Dragon
Red Dragon, directed by Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand), was a pretty good movie. I don't think I enjoyed it quite as much as I did The Silence of the Lambs (we'll get into this later), but I still found it to be exciting and interesting as far as movies go.
So now Graham is back looking for a killer who murders entire families, rapes the wife, and then puts pieces of mirror in everybody's eye sockets- he does this by breaking all the mirrors in the house, which led me to believe that he's in for some seriously bad luck in the future.
Graham goes around to the houses, checks out evidence, discovers a few new clues and then goes to visit his old pal Dr. Lecter. Lecter gives him a few clues about the murderer, but not too much is resolved from the visit- that is except that a definite fear is established by Graham of Lecter. Lecter is a creepy dude and Graham is not happy that he has to go talk to him... but he's got a family and doesn't want anymore people to get their eyes ripped out and replaced with pieces of mirror.
While all of this is going on, we follow a strange IT guy named Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes) who has some serious fucking issues. He is clearly the Tooth Fairy, which we find out by watching him bench press like 250 pounds in the attic of his abandoned house. He has false teeth in a jar, which look like the molds the cops got from the dead wives that Dolarhyde killed. He's obsessed with the William Blake painting The Great Red Dragon and he even has some crazy-ass dragon tattoo's on his back. He attributes these tattoos to the "transformation" he is making from man to dragon (?) and with each person he kills, he gets closer to totality.
The movie goes on, we see that the Red Dragon is sort of human (he lets the blind chick he's dating live, although he kills quite a few other people... but still), Lecter helps Graham out and the figure out that Dolarhyde is the killer- he picked his victims because he worked at a company that made personal home movies for each family that he slaughtered. Dolarhyde eventually gets what's coming to him by way of some bullets and a steak knife, and everyone lives (happily ever after?).
Some of the positive parts of this movie (besides Keitel's awesome hair) were: Norton's acting. I thought he did a great job, certainly reminiscent of his Fight Club days. The story was very interesting and believable, and the cast did a good job bringing it all to life. I also thought the film was shot extremely well- the most memorable shot would be near the end when the camera is looking under the door and Dolarhyde is hiding in the hallway. You see Graham's wife climb the stairs and start down towards the door (all you can see is feet at this point), and then you see the heavy boots of the killer right behind her- very exciting.
I must admit, overall I didn't enjoy Red Dragon as much as The Silence of the Lambs because Dragon seemed very forced. It seemed like Graham, despite being a seasoned vet, picked up on things far too quickly. It seemed like he solved the case before the movie was at the halfway mark, where in Lambs, Starling doesn't realize who Buffalo Bill is until the last 15 minutes or so.
I also thought that Hannibal Lecter was a much more interesting, in control and overall dynamic character in Lambs, while he was pretty "tuned down" in Dragon. Even when he was locked up, he was in control when he was dealing with Agent Starling, but when Graham is in the picture he never really has anything to say- no mind games, he's just used as a means to an end.
I enjoyed this movie, but not as much as Lambs.
Manhunter
I’m gonna cut to the bacon here, I went into this movie knowing I would like it. I wanted to. The original prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, one of my favorite movies, had to be good. If I hated it then I instantly would have resentment toward Silence, and I didn’t want that. So that’s the big skinny up until watching Manhunter. And for the most part, I didn’t have to try very hard.
The story follows Will Graham, a retired FBI agent who is sparsely mentioned in Silence (though we get more detail in the novel) who gets called out of retirement to help his old boss and friend Jack Crawford catch a serial killer named the Tooth Fairy. Director and screenwriter Michael Mann (Public Enemies, Collateral) hasn’t changed much when it comes to pacing. This early film of his moves methodically much like Public Enemies, which can lose some viewers. It also omits Graham’s back story, which is his friendship and eventual capturing of Hannibal Lector, who in this film is played by Brian Cox. The remake (Red Dragon) that comes some years later, includes these flashbacks and ultimately strengthens the story, though it lands in the category of sequel films Hollywood pushes out based on the success of an original.
I can’t help but go into a comparative mood between these two films now. Lector is obviously stronger when played by Anthony Hopkins, though Bryan Cox is no slouch either. Graham is really the highlight of Manhunter, masterfully played by William Petersen, but again Edward Norton brings his own charm to the character in Dragon.
So what it comes down to how it is presented to us. Manhunter is told in the traditional linear fashion, but it doesn’t get caught up with trying to cram Hopkins down our throat like Red Dragon.
I’d have to lean toward Manhunter being stronger film because it doesn’t have that contrived Hollywood feel to it, which is probably why it flopped at the box office. Petersen’s haunted take on Graham is a memorable one and worth watching in itself, but in the grand scheme, neither can stand up to the strength of The Silence of the Lambs.
I know this review kinda lost its focus, but Mike and I wanted to compare two movies here, same narrative but almost two decades apart. And somewhere in the middle of those two decades is the perfect balance of Hollywood flare and quality storytelling.
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