|
Somewhere between eating that liver with the fava beans and
the chianti and hanging and disemboweling an unfortunate police
detective in Florence, Hannibal Lecter became a parody of
himself. In the excellent The Silence Of The Lambs,
Lecter is a quietly menacing tiger in a cage whose ability
to control any situation, even in a plexiglass prison, makes
him a grim combination of deadly and fascinating. In the not-so-excellent
but still entertaining Hannibal, he’s a bemused grandfather
type on vacation, with the occasional lapse into less-than-pleasant
activities. And now there’s Red Dragon, otherwise known
as The Hannibal Variety Hour. Hear Lecter tell jokes, see
him fight with knives, watch him prance self-importantly,
acting smarter than everyone around him. It’s enough to make
you wish for Buffalo Bill to appear in drag and sing for us.
Red Dragon is based on the Thomas Harris novel
of the same name, the first Lecter book, which was already
made into a movie in 1986 in the form of the critically lauded
Manhunter. While many critics and fans consider that
original film to be superior even to Silence, to me
it felt too much like watching a high school stage production
of Hamlet. The characters were too broadly drawn, the
interactions between actors too rehearsed, and the story too
much at the service of showboating. So with Red Dragon,
I had hopes of something better. I mean, look at that cast!
And Ted Tally, the guy who won an Oscar for his script
for The Silence Of The Lambs, is back as the screenwriter.
But one look at who’s directing, and all hopes can be laid
to rest. It’s Brett Ratner, whose claim to fame is
unleashing Chris Tucker on a world that didn’t do anything
to deserve it, with Money Talks and the Rush Hour
movies. And Ratner makes mincemeat out of Red Dragon.
Where Silence was spare and elegant, Red Dragon
is high-octane and crass. Where Hannibal was wickedly
funny, Red Dragon is often just silly. And where Manhunter
was only marginally annoying, Red Dragon takes the
word “irritating” to a new level. Ratner and Tally have set
out to make a crowd-pleaser that doubles as a prestige film.
But they leave out both the darkly comic tone of the novel
and the insidious dread that makes it so affecting. In the
end, the film ends up feeling like one of those Eric Roberts
movies that you come across on HBO at 3 a.m. while crunching
on goldfish crackers and pop tarts. Instead of trying to engage
the audience, the filmmakers seem to just want to put on a
show that’ll rake in that money. There’s no aspiration beyond
immediate profit. It’s a discredit to the aim of Harris’s
novels, which illuminate the darkest motivations of the human
animal and show how man justifies the evil that he does.
As Will Graham, Edward Norton tries his damnedest
to do justice to the Will Graham of Harris’s novel. But the
role is so underwritten that any attempts on Norton’s part
to make Graham interesting get no help, so the character ends
up pretty bland and uninvolving. Hannibal Lecter needs an
adversary who can match each move he makes in his little psychological
games. As Clarice Starling in Silence, Jodie Foster
lived up to what Lecter needs, artfully giving Clarice the
studied intensity necessary to take on the Cannibal. Norton
isn’t able to do this with Will Graham, and it’s a shame,
because there is a definite imbalance on the good vs. evil
scale in Red Dragon.
But it’s not all bad. Ralph Fiennes is truly creepy
and actually a little touching as Francis Dollarhyde, a serial
killer who believes that he is the human manifestation of
a spiritual being, and Emily Watson is heartbreaking
as Reba McClane, a blind photo developer who has an affair
with Dollarhyde. Watson has one of the most interesting faces
in movies today. Her wide facial features crystallize her
emotions and force you to acknowledge what her characters
are going through, and she gives Reba a flair of wit and grace
that mask her insecurities. It’s the best performance in the
film.
I wish I could say that of Anthony Hopkins. In Silence,
he was nothing short of brilliant. The unblinking eyes, the
rod-straight posture, the carefully measured speech—all these
were ways that he made Lecter the quintessential movie villain.
He didn’t just inhabit his environment; he dominated it, in
the quietest, most unassuming way possible. But with Red
Dragon, you don’t get that impression. There are bits
of retread, and a (un)healthy dose of self-parody mixed in
for good measure. It’s not at all effective because, yes,
even Hopkins is phoning this in. He’s said before in interviews
that he can play Lecter in his sleep. Well, in Red Dragon,
he’s asleep. And so am I.
—Cole Sowell
|
While we would never encourage anyone to destroy a video... 
