Red Dragon is a 2002 thriller about a retired F.B.I. agent assigned to help track down a mysterious serial killer.
A year before the film The Silence of the Lambs was released, I had read the Thomas Harris book of the same name, and I can still recall sitting on the end of my couch utterly consumed by his imagery. One chapter in particular, where young FBI Agent Starling investigates a self storage locker was so magnetic and chilling, I remember waiting for it in the film and being crushed by how quickly and decidedly un-scary it was – even though the movie is really great. I realized right then that I would need to separate my expectations about the two forms of media. Movies are movies and books are books.
Red Dragon – the book – was actually released seven years before the one that made Harris famous, and I actually read it after reading the second, probably like many. I did enjoy it, again taken by the author’s excellent use of imagery, but found it not nearly as satisfying as The Silence of the Lambs. However, in 2002, when the film based on the book was released, I was still excited, mostly because the villain in these stories, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is so darned compelling, and since Anthony Hopkins did very well in bringing that madman to life on screen in the first, I was curious what he’d do in reverse, so to speak, as the story is in fact, a prequel.
That was nearly sixteen years ago, and having not seen it since then, I was looking forward to seeing how it fares now, especially as the genre has shifted a bit even as the influence of the Hannibal character still seems to resonate. I’ll say right away, I wasn’t entirely disappointed, even though some of it has not aged well, and to be direct, it was with Lecter I was most put off by. However, this is a very well-made thriller with a truly imposing main villain and plenty of well-earned frights.
Interestingly, Red Dragon is not the first film to adapt the novel, even if it’s the only one that kept the book’s name. Back in 1986, Michael Mann, who was making waves on television with his hit crime drama Miami Vice, directed a movie called Manhunter, with Brian Cox starring as the serial killer Lecter, though he has a greatly reduced role in comparison with Hopkins. Cox is great and so too is William Petersen, who gained fame years later in the CSI series. It’s a terrific movie that I highly recommend. Mann knows how to tell a story with great style.
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The 2002 version is directed by Brett Ratner, and is really one of his best films. It stars Edward Norton as Will Graham, a talented FBI Agent with a unique ability in profiling serial killers. At the start, he’s been working with a highly successful doctor named Hannibal Lecter in hopes of tracking a vicious maniac who Graham thinks is a cannibal. Naturally, he eventually realizes it’s the good doctor himself, and almost pays for that discovery with his own life.
Skip ahead six years, Hannibal is in prison and Graham has reduced his commitment to the job, suffering severe mental stress in recovering, living now in sunny Florida with his wife (Mary Louise Parker) and their young son. Unfortunately, the world is still populated with crazies, and every once in awhile, Will’s boss, Jack Crawford (Harvey Keitel) call him for help. Today is such a day. There’s a real maniac on the loose, nicknamed The Tooth Fairy, and while they know little about him, they do know he strikes on the full moon, which, given the brutal slaughter of the last family he he cut down, means only a few weeks to try and stop him.
So, here kicks in a few of the well-worn tropes of the mastermind criminal investigator in movies, he (typically a male) is reluctant, hesitant about getting back into the fray, but swayed by pictures of the victims that remind him of his own family. Then there is the disappointed wife who understands her husband’s sense of duty but can’t seem to get on his side all the way since it means leaving her and the kid, which of course means that somewhere along the way, the killer will make it personal and go after them, altering his initial plan because you know, the good guy is getting too close. Admittedly, this is somewhat close to the book.
I like Norton as Will Graham. He’s very close to how I pictured him and I’ve always liked Norton’s approachable method, a little worn around the edges, believably vulnerable. He makes following him through this nightmare easy, even if the script sort of trims away many of the smaller moments that really define him best in the book. He’s a smart guy, sees thing others don’t and it’s played as a kind of a torment rather than a gift. It’s well done.
However, my favorite bit is with Freddie Lounds (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a tabloid reporter who hounds Graham almost daily for information, something that proves beneficial for the FBI Agent at one point and not so much for the reporter. I won’t spoil the moment, but it involves a meeting between the killer, played by Ralph Fiennes and Lounds, one that is easily the most impactful in the film, leading to a moment of terror that isn’t easy to shake. Hoffman is, as he always was, brilliant.
Red Dragon is a pretty solid thriller and while it doesn’t have the same effect as Jonathan Demme‘s The Silence of the Lambs, is still a well made and often scary thriller with a number of terrific performances, including Emily Watson, a blind woman who draws the killer near for very different reasons. Ratner puts his stamp on the series and delivers a stylish, menacing film that he has yet to duplicate. Personally, Hopkins is the weak point, his over-indulgence in the idiosyncrasies that made Lecter so memorable in the first film drawn out to distraction here. That’s my call. Tastes may vary. Either way, if you’re looking for a night of chills, Red Dragon is hard to beat.