Indy Film

The financial (as opposed to artistic) success of Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs continues to hold sway over the cinematic world of Dr. Hannibal Lector, best recognized in the form of Sir Anthony Hopkins. Of course Lambs also stunned Hollywood by sweeping the 1991 Academy Awards, winning Oscars for best picture, director, actor and actress, and adapted screenplay - but that was just sauce on the cerebellum.

The American public had swallowed a tale of cannibalism to the tune of $130 million. The film was an adaptation of the second of what became a trilogy of novels dealing with "Hannibal the Cannibal" by author Thomas Harris. Our culture's collective memory seems more closely linked with movies than books, and since the original attempt at filming Red Dragon (the first in the series) bombed at the box-office, people tend to forget it even exists. Judging from the promotion for the new version, the media and producers would just as soon keep it that way.

Thanks to home video and the efforts of some more informative critics, Michael Mann's 1986 psychological thriller Manhunter now has a cult following. Those who are seeking pure entertainment should join the line at the multiplex, but if you can stomach watching a portrait of what it actually takes to catch a serial killer you're better off with the original. There are even a few individuals out there who rate Mann's film and Lector (the overlooked British actor Brian Cox) superior to Demme's - an argument worth debating. That Manhunter is superior to Red Dragon is not.

For those of you unfamiliar with either the novel Red Dragon or its previous motion picture incarnation, the plot is very similar to The Silence of the Lambs. An FBI agent is trying to capture a serial killer before he strikes again and goes to Lector for help. In this case it's retired profiler Will Graham (Edward Norton), the man who actually caught Hannibal Lector. The physical and psychological damage inflicted upon him during the course of thinking like a mass murderer led to his early retirement. But when his old boss (Harvey Keitel) comes to him for help in solving a new case involving a monster known only as "The Tooth Fairy" (so named because of the bite marks left on his victims), he can't resist.

The disturbed killer is played by Ralph Fiennes, and further complicating matters is the mutual attraction between himself and a blind woman portrayed by Emily Watson. Throw in Philip Seymour Hoffman as a seedy reporter and Mary-Louise Parker as Graham's wife and you'll have trouble finding a better ensemble outside of a Robert Altman movie. For the record, Hopkins, Norton, Fiennes, Watson and Keitel have no less than 11 Academy Award nominations between them.

There is considerable talent behind the camera as well, most notably cinematographer Dante Spinotti, who also shot Manhunter. Screenwriter Ted Tally, who won an Oscar for his Lambs script but skipped out on Hannibal, delivers a taught story. And the wonderful Danny Elfman composed the effective score. With all of these ingredients, one may expect (or at least hope, as I did) a return to form after Ridley Scott's exquisitely shot but ultimately dubious adaptation of Hannibal.

But something is missing. The power of deduction points to director Brett Ratner, and frankly I'd like to know why he was hired. The answer is most likely money. Nothing in Ratner's filmography (which includes Money Talks, Rush Hour and its sequel, and The Family Man) suggests he would be suited to direct a thriller, Red Dragon most of all.

The terrific cast is left to act in a void, as if Ratner realized they were more talented than he and left them to do their thing - a frequent problem when young directors are faced with the daunting task of telling a Hopkins or a Brando what to do. The entire cast does the best they can, but their efforts are aimless. The reality of it is that the two Rush Hour movies made A LOT of money.

Mann's version had a talented cast as well, including William Peterson in the Graham role, Joan Allen as the blind woman, and creepy-looking Tom Noonan as the killer on the loose. They were more effective not because they were more talented, but because their notoriously perfectionist director gave them purpose. They were also a possibly better cast. Edward Norton, one of my favorite actors, seems a bit young (32) to be playing a retired family man (Graham has a son, too). And Fiennes does the best with what he has to work with, but he's simply not the physical oddity that Noonon is, though that shouldn't be held against him.

Perhaps it isn't all that useful to compare a movie to one from 16 years ago - especially one that most of this movie's audience hasn't seen. I'm sure that in and of itself, the new movie is fine entertainment. The thing to do would be to re-release Manhunter to theatres, but since Hopkins isn't in the Lector role it would probably bomb again. Still, Michael Atkinson had a useful point in the Village Voice when he called the new version "utterly unnecessary." My job is to explain to you why what you're seeing up on the screen isn't working as well as it should. I'm not suggesting that Red Dragon could have been done better - because it already has.