"GIR, quickly, ride the pig!"

"Computer, take me to the weasels!"

Hannibal Lecter vs. Hannibal Lecktor
I am a fan of director Michael Mann; I mean, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Collateral, these are great flicks. I am also a fan of the film Red Dragon. To combine these two interests, I have long-desired to see the movie Manhunter, directed by Michael Mann and based on the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. This week, courtesy of my local video rental outlet, I have seen Manhunter. LET THE RECRIMINATIONS BEGIN! Er, let the comparison begin.

I am entirely aware that having seen Red Dragon before Manhunter, I am predisposed to prefer Red Dragon as the "proper" version of Harris's novel. However, I feel my affinity for Mann will render me objective. Manhunter just isn't very good; the primary problem with the film is that it must have felt dated two weeks after it was released. The sets all look the same. Each of the houses, the office buildings, everything is done in the same white monochrome, making the entire thing feel empty, sterile, lifeless. The acting performances are all fine (it's nice to see that before C.S.I., William Petersen was once an actor), but none are earthshattering. And if there's one thing worse than the horrible production design, it is the music. Shrieking keyboards are hardly the best way to set the stage for an unsettling murder. Red Dragon is set in the mid-/late-80s, yet it feels timeless. It could take place anytime fromt he 1960s to the present day. Manhunter suffers because it feels so locked into one very specific period of time.

It's weird to say it, but mano a mano Brett Ratner outdirected Michael Mann. (Of course, Mann improved as both a writer and a director.) Having seen all four "Lecter" films, it now makes sense to me why Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs entered the public's conscienceness in a way that Brian Cox's Hannibal Lecktor from Manhunter never did.

I've been thinking about adding Thomas Harris's novels to the reading queue.