(Wow. For a killer called "The Tooth Fairy" he sure looks fairly butch.)
CAST: Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel, Ralph Fiennes, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Mary Louise Parker, Emily Watson.
DIRECTOR: Brett Ratner.
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and decidedly non-flirtatious Lecter behavior - straight ahead.
Ask anyone to name the Top Five most memorable cinematic villains to come along in the last twenty years. Chances are the name "Hannibal Lecter" will be included, along with possibly Catherine Trammell (BASIC INSTINCT), Hans Gruber (DIE HARD), Darth Vader (DUH), and whatever rocket scientist approved Nicolas Cage's hairdo in NEXT (talk cruel and unusual punishment). In fact, I don't think anyone ever thought of fava beans, Chianti, or Anthony Hopkins in the same way ever again.
Most audiences got their introduction to Dr. Lecter through Anthony Hopkins' brilliant performance in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in 1990. But the character had been around long before that, and had even featured in another film. The not-so-good doctor made his debut in Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon" in 1980. Then, in 1985, he made his cinematic debut in MANHUNTER (1985), Michael Mann's slick and scary adaptation of that novel.
In MANHUNTER, Dr. Lecter was played by the now-ubiquitous Brian Cox. Several years later, after Harris' next novel "The Silence of the Lambs" hit big and picked up for the silver screen, Cox was reportedly approached to reprise his role of Hannibal Lecter. Fortunately, he turned it down for whatever reason. No disrespect intended to Brian Cox, because he's one of my favorite character actors, but I'm glad he did. His understated Lecter was perfect for the coolly clinical MANHUNTER. But for THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, a new Lecter was needed. A fiery, larger-than-life, lethally-charming-when-he's-not-just-being-lethal Lecter.
Enter Sir Anthony Hopkins. And the rest is history....
After the huge critical and commercial success of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, it was only inevitable that a sequel would rise, albeit belatedly. In 2001, HANNIBAL was released and raked in $50-plus million in its first three days of play in North America. Although not as critically-adored as its predecessor, HANNIBAL became a huge domestic and international hit - enough for the powers-that-be to start eyeing the first Lecter novel, "Red Dragon". Enough for them to travel back in time, cinematically speaking, and adapt it a second time under its true title.
RED DRAGON opens with a shot of our not-so-good Dr. Lecter at a symphony. He's trying his best to enjoy the music. Unfortunately, one of the orchestra's flutists is playing just a tad off-key. Now, to most people this would go unnoticed. Dr. Lecter, however, has hearing that makes a bat look like a prime candidate for a hearing aid. Basically, it's like nails scraping a chalkboard. Only somehow worse. And our doctor likes his music, just like his crimes, to be perfect. Which means that the flutist isn't long to this world.
Not too much later, we see Lecter entertaining a bunch of la-di-da dipsits at a dinner party where the guests talk about the following: (1) how tragic it is that the flutist has gone missing; (2) but also how fortunate that is for the symphony since his fluting skills were more suited to blowjobs than actual flute-playing; and (3) what is that divine red sauce that Dr. Lecter just served them? Do tell.
Lecter smiles coyly and actually says: "I'm afraid if I tell you, you won't eat it." No fucking shit, doc. Just tell them it's "Flutist Ragu." That ought to wake them up.
Anyhow, long after the hoity-toites leave with human flesh rolling around in their tummies, our hero shows up to consult with Dr. Lecter. He is FBI Special Agent Will Graham (Edward Norton), and he's been using Lecter's psychiatric wisdom to try to solve the recent spate of murders that apparently now involves the missing flutist. Of course, Graham has no fucking clue that he's basically soliciting advice from the person he's looking for. Not yet anyway.
Turns out the reason for Graham's visit is to inform Lecter that he just had a revelation. See, the killer - ahem - has been removing sections of flesh - double ahem - from the bodies. And Graham just realized that the section removed are all connected to... cooking. From there, it's a fairly small leap to conclude that the killer he's looking for is a cannibal.
Oh my God, you should see the barely-concealed look of "Holy Fucking Shit" on Lecter's face at this news. Oh, sure... he gives good poker face - but you know underneath he's thinking "This. Goddamned. Upstart. Has. Figured. Me. Out." To cover for his dismay, Lecter kisses Graham's ass and uses a bunch of fancy words to call him a superhuman genius who can "assume the emotional viewpoint of others - even if its unpleasant." Psssst, doc. There's a bunch of people who can do that: they're called actors and they tend to congregate in New York and L.A. Just keeping it real, doc.. Please don't eat me. At least, not literally.
Needless to say, our not-so-good doctor know its just a matter of time (minutes, to be exact) before Graham piece things together. So Lecter tries to kill him by jamming a knife in midsection, while calling him "a remarkable boy." Which would be accurate, considering Graham beat Lecter at his own game. He goes on to prove just how remarkable he is by going tit-for-tat and jamming a bunch of nearby arrows into Lecter's hard-to-miss gut. This distracts our not-so-good doc long enough for Graham to pull out his ankle gun and pump a few ounces of lead into Lecter's aforementioned gut. Seems it's a bad night to be Hannibal Lecter's gut.
Not enough to kill him, though, otherwise we wouldn't have THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and HANNIBAL.
Flash forward a few years, and we find Graham has been medically-retired from the Bureau, and is now living the good life on Key West in a bungalow by the sea with wife Molly (Mary-Louis Parker) and son Josh ( ). Well, I guess that's one way to get a cushy retirement: survive getting gutted by a cannibalistic serial killer. And I guess there's the added achievement of being the one to actually putting Lecter behind bars.
Unfortunately, Graham's peace doesn't last for long. His old boss, Special Agent Jack Crawford (Harvey Keitel), shows up to recruit his help in solving a new case: a new serial killer nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy" has killed two whole families in Georgia and Alabama. Evidently, the Fairy (snicker) kills every 30 days or something, and the clock is ticking down to when the next family will fall.
As much as Graham would love to stay on Key West and allow his hair to get blonder and his skin to get tanner, he feels that he should lend Crawford his help. Molly, as you can imagine, takes this news like someone just told her that a hurricane is headed their way and all the bridges back to the mainland have been sabotaged by intelligent sharks. In other words, Graham's got a lot of hard-selling to do.
Eventually, Molly gives in and lets him go. Without wasting any time, Graham heads over to the homes of the murdered families and does his "remarkable" thing by prowling around the inside and outside of the house to try to get into the killer's head. Soon, he intuits the following things: (1) the Fairy's interest is in the mothers (shocker, considering his name, right?); (2) he stalks the families and seems to know a lot about their patterns; and (3) he's going to need some help in building the Fairy's profile.
Right about now, you're probably wondering where the fuck Dr. Lecter is in all of this. Patience, young grasshopper, patience. Turns out that Lecter survived Graham's gunshots, and is now residing comfortably in the Baltimore State Sanitarium headed by asshole Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald). The sharp-eyed and "remarkable" among you may remember that Dr. Chilton became Dr. Lecter's pot roast at the end of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. In this movie, though, Chilton has no fucking clue that his final destination in life will be Dr. Lecter's toilet, and is therefore smug as ever. Just you wait, jackass.
So, Graham again consults with Dr. Lecter on a case. Now, I don't know about you folks, but I'm thinking that Lecter being asked for help by the guy who: (1) stabbed him with arrows, (2) shot him silly, and (3) put him behind bars, is not exactly the most feasible proposition. It's kind of like a deer hunter shooting a stag in the ass, then going up to it and asking it if it has seen Rudolph around lately. In other words, Graham's just asking for it.
Meanwhile, while Graham is (unwisely) hitting up our not-so-good doctor for info on The Tooth Fairy, we we skip over to see what the Fairy is actually doing. Turns out he's a very not-bad-looking guy named Francic Dolarhyde. Actually, make that a smokin' hot guy named Francis Dolarhyde. Not surprising, since Dolarhyde is played by Ralph Fiennes. Yes, folks. Our serial killer, The Tooth Fairy, is played by Ralph Fiennes. How's that for "shit that doesn't add up."
Anyhow, when Dolarhyde is not stalking families with the intention of turning them into statistics and urban legends, he works as some sort of video processor/technician. As you can imagine, his coworkers at the company are kind of scared of him. Probably because he's too good-looking. Happens all the time. The only person that is kind to him is blind co-worker Reba McClane (Emily Watson). Dolarhyde finds comfort in the fact that she can't see him because he thinks of himself as ugly. Again, try to suspend your disbelief.
Things get complicated, though, when Dolarhyde finds himself falling for Reba. Yes, deep down our serial killer is really just Heathcliff from WUTHERING HEIGHTS. For realz, yo. It goes without saying that when you are getting ready to unleash a can of hurt on some unsuspecting family, getting all googly-eyed for someone is a big distraction and highly inadvisable. It appears that The Tooth Fairy isn't a fairy after all.
So... the big questions... Will Dolarhyde allow Reba to humanize him? Will Graham get anything useful out of Lecter? Or will Lecter just smile and politely tell him to fuck off? Or worse - will Lecter deliberately try to mislead Graham and - even worse - turn Dolarhyde onto Molly and Josh? Will Graham catch up with Dolarhyde in time to save the next family? And the most pressing question of all: will Edward Norton and Ralph Fiennes end up duking it out in a game of "Quien Es Muy Macho?"
Inquring minds would like to know.
BUT, SERIOUSLY: It's a shame that RED DRAGON came out in 2002 - well after the Serial Killer genre's zenith. In the aftermath of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS's runaway success, a tidal wave of similar films (in plot, if not quality, for most) flooded theaters: JENNIFER EIGHT, COPYCAT, STRIKING DISTANCE, NIGHTWATCH, SEVEN, THE BONE COLLECTOR, THE CRIMSON RIVERS, THE WATCHER, KISS THE GIRLS, and SILENCE's own sequel HANNIBAL - just to name a few.
The point is, with RED DRAGON coming out after all of those movies (despite being based on a book from 1980) the serial-killer conventions it trots out on us feel a little recycled. And for those who've seen MANHUNTER, the superior 1987 version of the novel, that feeling is stronger. While RED DRAGON is technically well-made, it doesn't have any real feeling or distinctive tone of its own.
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS had a no-nonsense, procedural feel to it that was also suspenseful. HANNIBAL had a surreal, dream-like feel to it that was very removed from SILENCE's urgent tone. RED DRAGON, on the other hand, attempts to re-create SILENCE's brisk flavor - but only succeeds in feeling workmanlike and mechanical. What's missing here that was very abundant in both SILENCE and HANNIBAL is tension.
Fortunately, the cast is so good that they make the film a serviceable entry into the genre. Whatever suspense wrung from the story comes from their efforts. Edward Norton make a nicely-atypical and quirky hero. He's very handsome, but not in a way that distracts like Jon Hamm in THE TOWN. You believe immediately in Norton's portrayal of Graham as an extremely intuitive and gifted eideteker whose brilliance is also his curse.
Ralph Fiennes is low-key as Francis Dolarhyde - which is the right "volume level" to play this twisted character at. If Fiennes had played Dolarhyde as more flamboyant, the character would seem less threatening. While it takes a little getting used to seeing Ralph Fiennes as a serial killer, it eventually works due to his combo of icy good looks and innate ability to suggest dark, dark depths beneath those sad eyes.
The rest of the cast nail their roles. Harvey Keitel is concise and potent as Crawford. Philip Seymour Hoffman is appropriately sleazy and hissable as a tabloid reporter who becomes a pawn in both Graham and Lecter's games.
As for the women, Mary Louise Parker and Emily Watson are very good in their roles. Parker manages to keep Molly from slipping into "damsel-in-distress" territory, while Watson provides the film with something approaching an emotional center with her strange and strangely-sympathetic relationship with Dolarhyde.
And what about Sir Anthony Hopkins? Well, he's good as ever as Hannibal Lecter. This time, though, he is a meaner (if that's possible) presence. Remember: his dynamic with Graham is an antagonistic one since Graham caught him. Their exchanges have none of the semi-playful and almost-affectionate tones that Lecter's conversation with SILENCE's Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster). As he did with SILENCE, Hopkins and Lecter make the most of their limited screen time.
In the end, RED DRAGON is rendered average by its late entry into the genre, despite originating from source material that basically established it. Unfortunately, director Brett Ratner's attempts to recreate THE SILENCE OF THE LAMB's style instead of giving his film a flavor of its own also works against it.
Fortunately, that stellar cast sells the material with their conviction and dedication to their roles. And given how played out the Serial Killer genre is by now, I suppose that's more than we can hope for.
