Manhunter (1986)

The relatively forgotten Hannibal Lecter film that's a close-second to Silence of the Lambs.


Directed by: Michael Mann
Cinematography by: Dante Spinotti
Country: United States


The oft-forgotten first Hannibal Lecter film - adapted from the 1981 novel, Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris. Manhunter follows FBI agent Will Graham, the man responsible for capturing Hannibal Lecter, as he comes out of retirement to help catch a barbaric serial killer known as “The Tooth Fairy.”


Similarly to the highly acclaimed film that followed it, The Silence of the Lambs (1991), the FBI turns to Lecter, a genius psychiatrist and cannibalistic sociopath, for assistance in profiling the new serial killer.


Brian Cox’s fleeting turn as Hannibal Lecter is the polar opposite of Anthony Hopkins’s, but just as effective. Cox plays the madman as cool, calm and collected; laidback, and seemingly bored by how easy it is to manipulate people and get under their skin. Unlike Hopkins’s maniacal and flamboyant performance in which his unblinking eyes continually scream “I want to chew your face off,” Cox’s Lecter seems like a casual everyman (as much as a brilliant psychiatrist can be), someone you would trust and maybe even befriend, which makes his bloodlust and hunger for human flesh all the more disturbing.


I’ve discussed my enjoyment of movies that are entirely a product of their time period before, and Manhunter is no exception: it’s throughly 80s. Even watching it online it feels like you just popped in a VHS. It’s ambient electronic score swells so loud at parts that it nearly drowns out the dialogue, and cinematographer Dante Spinotti captured those very specific pastel pinks, glaring whites, and shadowy, neon blues that only seemed to exist during the 80s, and put them on full display throughout. There’s also a father-son heart-to-heart in a grocery store, and director Michael Mann films a number of scenes - in a crime/horror thriller - with all the pomp and melodrama of early MTV music videos. It’s amazing.



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