Product Description
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Disc 1: HANNIBAL Disc 2: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS Disc 3:
MANHUNTER
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Manhunter:Though it will always be remembered as the movie
featuring the "other" Hannibal Lecter, Michael Mann's 1986
thriller Manhunter is nearly as good as The Silence of the Lambs,
and in some respects it's arguably even better. Based on Thomas
Harris's novel Red Dragon, which introduced the world to the
nefarious killer Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter, the film stars
William Petersen (giving a suitably brooding performance) as
ex-FBI agent Will Graham, who is coaxed out of semiretirement to
track down a serial killer who has thwarted the authorities at
every turn.
Graham's approach to the case is a perilous one. First he seeks
counsel with Lecter (Brian Cox) in the latter's high-security
prison cell--an encounter that is utterly horrifying in its
psychological effect--and then he begins to mold his own psyche
to that of the killer, with potentially devastating results. As
directed by Mann (who was at the acme of his success with TV's
Miami Vice), this sophisticated cat-and-mouse game never resorts
to the compromise of cheap thrills. Predating Anthony Hopkins's
portrayal of Lecter by four years, Cox plays the character closer
to Harris's original, lower-key conception, and he's no less
compelling in the role. Petersen is equally well cast, and as
always Mann employs rock music to astonishing effect, using
nearly all of Iron Butterfly's heavy-metal epic
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" to accompany the film's heart-stopping
climactic sequence. All of this makes Manhunter one of the finest
films of its kind, as well as further proof that Harris's fiction
is a blessing to any filmmaker brave enough to adapt it. --Jeff
Shannon
The Silence of the Lambs: Based on Thomas Harris's novel, this
terrifying film by Jonathan Demme really only contains a couple
of genuinely shocking moments (one involving an autopsy, the
other a prison break). The rest of the film is a splatter-free
visual and psychological descent into the hell of madness,
redeemed astonishingly by an unlikely connection between a
monster and a haunted young woman. Anthony Hopkins is
extraordinary as the cannibalistic psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal
Lecter, virtually entombed in a subterranean prison for the
criminally insane. At the behest of the FBI, agent-in-training
Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) approaches Lecter, requesting his
ins into the identity and methods of a serial killer named
Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). In exchange, Lecter demands the right
to penetrate Starling's most painful memories, creating a bizarre
but palpable intimacy that liberates them both under separate but
equally horrific circumstances. Demme, a filmmaker with a
uniquely populist vision (Melvin and Howard, Something Wild),
also spent his early years making pulp for Roger Corman (Caged
Heat), and he hasn't forgotten the significance of tone,
atmosphere, and the unsettling nature of a crudely effective
close-up. Much of the film, in fact, consists of actors staring
straight into the camera (usually from Clarice's point of view),
making every bridge between one set of eyes to another seem
terribly dangerous. --Tom Keogh
Hannibal: Yes, he's back, and he's still hungry. Ten years after
The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter
(Anthony Hopkins, reprising his O-winning role) is living the
good life in Italy, studying art and sipping espresso. FBI agent
Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Jodie Foster), on the
other hand, hasn't had it so good--an outsider from the start,
she's now a quiet, moody loner who doesn't play bureaucratic
games and suffers for it. A botched drug raid results in her
demotion--and a request from Lecter's only living victim, Mason
Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited), for a little Q and A. Little
does Clarice realize that the hideously deformed Verger--who,
upon suggestion from Dr. Lecter, peeled off his own face--is
using her as bait to lure Dr. Lecter out of hiding, quite certain
he'll capture the good doctor.
Taking the basic plot contraptions from Thomas Harris's baroque
novel, Hannibal is so stylistically different from its
predecessor that it forces you to take it on its own terms.
Director Ridley Scott gives the film a sleek, almost European
look that lets you know that, unlike the first film (which was
about the quintessentially American Clarice), this movie is all
Hannibal. Does it work? Yes--but only up to a point. Scott
adeptly sets up an atmosphere of foreboding, but it's all buildup
for anticlimax, as Verger's plot for abducting Hannibal (and
feeding him to man-eating wild boars) doesn't really deliver the
requisite visceral thrills, and the much-ballyhooed climatic
dinner sequence between Clarice, Dr. Lecter, and a third unlucky
guest wobbles between parody and horror. Hopkins and Moore are
both first-rate, but the film contrives to keep them as far apart
as possible, when what made Silence so amazing was their
interaction. When they do connect it's quite thrilling, but it's
unfortunately too little too late. --Mark Englehart