Red Dragon

Red Dragon was an unnecessary film, seeing as how a film had already been made from the source material, Thomas Harris' novel. But that movie, called Manhunter, directed by Michael Mann, didn't have Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, so remaking it made sense, as Hopkins has pretty much made a career of playing the sadistic cannibal with the refined tastes.

I haven't seen Manhunter in ages, but I know it was better than Red Dragon, directed by Brett Ratner. Not to knock Ratner, who does a competent job recreating the mood of Jonathan Demme's Silence of the Lambs. The setup is pretty much the same, as an FBI profiler (Edward Norton) turns to Lector for advice in catching a gruesome serial killer nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy." Lector wants quid pro quo, and engages in mind games with Norton, but even though this book was the first in the Hannibal series, we've seen all this before.

What helps this film is a great cast. Hopkins, who to this date has played Lector four times, is too hammy, but I liked Norton, and Ralph Fiennes as the killer is really creepy. He manages to appear vaguely normal in real life, enough to attract a blind co-worker (Emily Watson), but harbors all sorts of psychological scars, and has a bad-ass back tattoo. Also in the cast are Harvey Keitel as Jack Crawford (how many actors have played this role?) and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a scummy tabloid reporter. Hoffman, which is the reason I watched the film at this time, has a small part, but has a riveting scene in which he pleads for his life with Fiennes, which shows Hoffman's incredible gifts.

Although this is kind of palimpsest of Silence of the Lambs, it does have some thrills and chills and kept my attention.