Grissom vs. Lecter

The Movie: Manhunter, directed by Michael Mann
Recommendation: Len
Reason: Red Dragon before there was a Silence of the Lambs.

This movie sort of played like a prequel to CSI, more than a prequel to the wonderful Silence of the Lambs. William Peterson was playing Grissom, apparently, fourteen years before Grissom stepped onto our TV screens. I hate to reduce a decent serial killer movie into a two hour prequel for a TV series and its spinoffs, but that's simply how it felt. It seems like Michael Mann has a sort of television-vibe to his directing.

Whoever wrote the script, incidentally, was apparently envisioning a very different Bill Graham. The lines that Peterson delivered wouldn't have been out of place coming from an older man, but he sounded and looked too young to be calling the killer 'buddy' like some condescending older dude. Still, the actors did what they could with what was given to them.

For a film that technically speaking began the cinematic legacy of Hannibal Lecter, the Lecter (or Lecktor, as his name was spelled in the film) wasn't all that interesting. There was none of the menace that Anthony Hopkins oozed up on the screen, none of the unpredictable 'ohgodhe'sgoingtomaulmybrain' in Brian Cox's eyes. He was good, but he wasn't Lecter as we've come to understand him. In fact, I don't think Hannibal Lecter has existed since Silence of the Lambs-Red Dragon, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising can just suck it and realize they can never be as good.

-71/365 down, 294/365 to go