April 5, 2003

• Review:

  
  

  Red Dragon

  Thomas Harris is the kind of writer I want to be.  There are a lot of good writers in print who draw believable characters with depth and humanity.  Most writers will devote page after page to the development of a hero or a victim, while their bad guys are only cardboard cutouts, no heart and no soul. 

  
  

  I have known enough murderers in my life to know that they are some of the most complex and soulful people around.  Harris is one of the few writers who develops his “villains” as well as he does the protagonists, which is very well indeed.  He has created several “real” monsters in his books, as any fan of Hannibal Lecter knows.

  
  

  I read Red Dragon in the early eighties.  It set me off on one of the more interesting quests for knowledge in this lifetime.  His well-informed portrayals of serial killers and FBI profilers sent me to the books to study serial killers.  I had to know more about that phenomenon, to try and understand the inner workings of those minds.  After a couple of decades of study, I’ve virtually exhausted the available literature and satisfied much of my curiosity.

  
  

  When I first heard that Anthony Hopkins had agreed to play Lecter in a new movie version of Red Dragon, I was interested but not avidly.  I knew I’d watch the movie whenever Greyfox brought the video home, but I was in no great hurry for it. 

  
  

  He had already brought home the disappointing earlier movie taken from this book, Manhunter.  I didn’t expect too much more from a second try at it.  Manhunter was a police procedural, apparently heavily influenced by TV’s Miami Vice.  It was Will Graham’s story, not Francis Dolarhyde’s, which the book had been.

  
  

  Yesterday morning at the local general store, Greyfox says he was jittering with excitement at learning that they had gotten the Red Dragon DVD in.  He was enthusing over it to the owner and a customer.  When he said that Hannibal Lecter was his hero, he got some odd looks in response.  But that’s my Old Fart the ArmsMerchant.  He says Lecter, “knows his knives.”   Yeah, he does, and he also knows his cuisine.  One of my favorite props in Red Dragon is an original copy of Larousse Gastronomique, the bible of cookbooks.

  
  

  Hannibal Lecter was introduced to the world in the book Red Dragon.  His part of the book was little more than an introduction.  The movie, capitalizing on the character’s popularity, gives him a much greater role, filling in some of the cannibal’s background out of Hannibal and prefiguring his appearance in Silence of the Lambs.  Hopkins displays his superlative acting skill here.  Can the man DO less than wonderful work?  I don’t think so.

  
  

  Casting and production in Red Dragon are excellent.  There are many very good actors, even in very small parts.  Set design and cinematography are so good that nothing about them jumps out at a viewer.  That is just as it should be:  the play’s the thing, and production values should not take the viewer out of it.

  
  

  This film has many of the things I look for in a movie:  good writing (both in the book and in a screenplay that is extraordinarliy true to it), fine casting and acting, seamless editing, and full frontal male nudity.  That last is only a brief sequence, mostly backlit and in silhouette, but Ralph Fiennes’ dark pubic hair and dangly swinging genitals has turned out to be one of the most memorable scenes in the film.  So sue me.

  
  

  This movie got three thumbs up here.  That’s rare as can be, in this household of three people with very diverse tastes.  Doug, Greyfox and I all loved it.  We’ve long ago decided that having all three of us approve of ANYTHING is a resounding endorsement.  The gory business was, I think, handled just right.  Too much blood would have turned this into a horror move (which I hate and Greyfox loves).  Too little gore would have been sanitizing the violence, which I abhor.  This was a very well-done thriller. 

  
  

  See the movie.  Get the DVD and see all the extra features that go with it.  You won’t be sorry.

  • 3:32 pm
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