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Red Dragon: A Heaping
Morsel
by Michael Flanagan
Super
I first saw Michael Mann's Manhunter when I was about
ten. My review at the time would have been, "It was
good. Pretty scary. I liked it." In the
years since then, I've watched it several times and enjoyed it
even more. The film was well written and well directed,
evenly-paced and overall, quite good. So I questioned the
need to remake the film now, as it seemed, to cash in on the
appeal of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter.
But this is one hell of a movie. The cast, basically an
updated new generation version of Manhunter, did a great
job of putting slight variations on established
characters. Edward Norton is subtlety and quietly morose,
staring at anyone and everyone with a squinted, distrustful
glare. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is disgusting and funny as
the unfortunate tabloid reporter. Harvey Keitel is...well,
Harvey Keitel. Ralph Fiennes is, perhaps for the first
time in his life, unattractive. Brilliantly unattractive,
in a dangerous and psychologically disturbed kind of way.
But Emily Watson takes the proverbial cake as the blind
Reba. She is wonderfully sexual, yet innocent.
Though Red Dragon does not reach the cinematic heights
of Silence of the Lambs, it does deliver an extremely
powerful cast and a well-delivered story that easily rivals Manhunter
and tramples the despicable Hannibal, and it's a damn
good movie all in it's own right. |
