Manhunter

Despite all the effort, dollars spent, words written and time wasted there have only been two good Hannibal Lecter movies. 

This and Silence of the Lambs. 

Director Jonathan Demme brought the Thomas Harris book to life in Silence of the Lambs. And Michael Mann took a Harris book and turned it into a Michael Mann movie. 

Harris and Mann were so early to serial killers and profilers in popular fiction that they are basically inventing the formula here. 

The next four or five decades of television and film are filled with variations of cops hunting serial killers and serial killers hunting each other and diminishing returns of Hannibal Lecter sequels and prequels. 

I have never seen the show but the fact that there is a show is a particular kind of failure no matter how good the episodes might be. 

Anyway, this is visually stunning, cause of course it is, the synth score speaks to me and if the whole enterprise doesn’t quite hit a high note for me it’s just because, once again, Mann is forever more interested in visuals than he is with dialogue. 

William Peterson really rocks here and if you have seen this and To Live and Die in LA you have to wonder how he never managed to really break through or break out. CSI was a hit, of course, but this guy was magic when you handed him the ball on the big screen. 

To be fair, no one, except maybe Harris knew what they had in a character as intriguing as Hannibal Lector so you shouldn’t fault Mann for limiting his screen time in a story that doesn’t really have much to do with him. 

But I’m a catty old man and I do fault him. Mann literally told people he thought he should limit Lector’s presence in the movie. What an incredible mistake. 

Ah well, you must give credit where it is due and if this is only the second best Lector movie that’s still quite the achievement. They’ve come at it one way or another for four decades and most of them still haven’t topped it. 

I would not call myself a fan of the genre but in the world of film there’s only like what 4 or five really great serial killer flicks? 

This, Silence of the Lambs, Seven and Zodiac. 

Funny thought, but we really should hand Lecter down generation after generation like Hamlet. 

So I say it’s time for a remake. Get Tom Hardy to play Lecter and Timothy Chalamet to be Will Graham. Jenna Ortega can cameo as Clarice at the end. 

Hardy would be great even if none of us will understand a damn word he says.