We begin the Anthony Hopkins Lecter Trilogy with arguably the worst of the three of them, Red Dragon, an ill advised eleven years later prequel that finds us with an incredibly uninteresting Will Graham in Edward Norton, serviceable at best Dolarhyde and Reba (Ralph Fiennes & Emily Watson), but a more restrained performance from Anthony Hopkins, and a great schlubby performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman as Freddy Lounds. Not going to lie, we're not very positive about this film.
All on this episode of Eat The Rudecast, a podcast about The TV series Hannibal, and the works of Thomas Harris.
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How about “Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal” or “Gaumont International’s Hannibal”?
Did Lucas get good actors to play Anakin in the prequels? I don’t think the script was going to give someone like Portman much good material. Red Dragon has an ok script from Ted Tally, but Norton is simply phoning it in.
I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a period piece.
This half season of Hannibal was not a good adaptation of Red Dragon (although it had some good sequences). Fuller had already gone off in a different direction, so nothing fit together well.
Hopkins was too hammy in this. And snapping his mouth as if threatening to bite Will while straining against a chain? Ugh.
Harris had an earlier “strong female character” in Dahlia Iyad from Black Sunday, whom he later said was a forerunner for Clarice Starling.
Watching the show, I hoped Alana would teach Molly to shoot, making sure to remind her how much more a gun weighs when it’s loaded 🙂
Jonathan Demme does lots of dead-on closeups of faces in his films.
It’s hard to believe Spinotti shot both Manhunter & Red Dragon. The cinematography is so different. Ratner must have told him to imitate Silence, which just raises the question of why they hired Spinotti (unless it was due to the De Laurentiis connection).
From what I heard, Hopkins didn’t actually know how chianti was pronounced.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the only significant performance I think is better in Red Dragon than Manhunter. A rare example of Ratner being more subtle. Lang was too cartoonish, which may be how Harris saw the character, but it’s good to aim higher.
The novel sexualizes the deceased married couple, but that’s in Mrs. Leeds’ diary rather than a home movie.
Mann also had the Dragon talking in an earlier draft, but removed it.
If you like Frank Langella, watch season 3 of The Americans. Actually just watch The Americans regardless of what you think about him. Best show of the year.
Hopkins was inspired not only by Katherine Hepburn & HAL, but also by Truman Capote (who acted in “Murder by Death”).
Dolarhyde does store a trunk of dynamite in his house in the book, intending to blow it up and destroy evidence. It goes off on the ground floor though.
I think Thomas Harris’ ending was too depressing for anyone adapting the story. Even though Fuller makes Will suicidal, Molly is on better terms with him so Harris’ ending wouldn’t work quite as well.
The ending of Manhunter was so great I’m surprised Cooper briefly forgot and thought Dolarhyde killed himself.
I’m glad you agree on the terrible ending tying it together with Silence of the Lambs.
All in all, I’m surprised you remembered all these faults of the movie and Cooper still said (at this point) he preferred it to Manhunter. I mainly recall the movie as being mediocre and superfluous.