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Worlds Without End Blog

Month of Horrors / Hell is Adaptations: Red Dragon Posted at 3:25 PM by Jonathan McDonald

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Month of Horrors: Red Dragon

Considered at the time to be the black sheep of the Hannibal Lecter cinematic family, Red Dragon retells the story of Thomas Harris’ first Lecter novel. That’s not quite fair though, because Dragon wasn’t Lecter’s story, but Will Graham’s. It’s an important point to make, because even though Lecter would quickly take over as the most interesting character in this shared fictional universe, Red Dragon the novel is the story of Will Graham, an FBI agent and profiler who excels because of his ability to empathize with just about anyone, even serial killers.

Unfortunately, his special abilities are put to use in solving the Chesapeake Ripper case, where the killer has apparently been removing random organs from his victims. Except that these organs were actually being chosen with great care to prepare various dishes. And when the trail leads Graham to Dr. Lecter’s office, he is nearly disemboweled before managing to shoot Lecter and call for help.

Three years later, Graham is retired and living comfortably with his wife and stepson in Florida doing odd jobs far away from FBI headquarters in D.C. Fearing not only for his safety but for his sanity as he needed to enter deeply into the minds of killers in order to catch them, Graham wants nothing to do with catching killers anymore. His old boss Jack Crawford, though, has other ideas. A new serial killer has emerged who brutally murders entire families, and his habit of biting his victims has earned him the nickname of The Tooth Fairy. Appealing to Graham’s pity as a family man, Crawford gets him back into action and on the case. After hitting a number of dead-ends, Graham turns to the one man who could really help him sort out a case: Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

"Now, where is that order form for walkers?"

“Now, where is that order form for walkers?”

Thus begins a three-way game of wits between Graham, his mortal enemy Lecter, and The Tooth Fairy, most of whom are in constant contact with one another. Hannibal Lecter seems to have been something of a happy accident as far as the novel goes, created to facilitate a meeting of the minds between Graham and the Fairy, but taking on an unholy life of his own. Lecter is not particularly necessary to the plot, in fact, and he serves mostly to serve as a reminder that Graham can catch someone even this evil, and to act as a sounding board for Graham’s thought processes during the case. Regrettably for Graham, Lecter holds a huge grudge again his captor, and subverts his work by helping the Fairy on the sly from his cell.

It’s a formula that Harris would clone for his sequel, The Silence of the Lambs: FBI agents come up against a case that is too difficult to solve, with more victims waiting to be slaughtered very soon, and in their desperation they turn to Dr. Lecter for his expert advice on the matter. Indeed, it’s a formula that Harris could have cloned for a few more novels before wearing out its welcome, but his interest in the Lecter character drove him to move into entirely new territory, and I think that this move was more laudable than the more obvious choice of milking the selling formula for all it’s worth, even if the results weren’t exactly what his fans hoped for.

The adaptation of this novel in 1986 as the film Manhunter was moderately successful, but left many critics and fans cold. Following the success of the film adaptations of The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal, the production company which held the rights to the Lecter novels decided to take another stab at adapting the one that started it all. So it came to be that only one year after the release of Hannibal in theaters, Anthony Hopkins again took up the role of the cannibal psychiatrist in a film version of Red Dragon.

Something clever

“Eh, it was either this or get eaten.”

To be sure, it’s really strange seeing a ten-years older Hopkins reprising the role in a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs. There’s no way you can pretend that this Lecter predates the Lecter of Silence, but Hopkins gives it a go and still has a lot of fun with it. Far more fun than he had in Hannibal, I’d reckon. For one thing, he plays off the Will Graham character in a way we haven’t really seen him react to anybody: with pure and unadulterated hatred. He absolutely hates that Will Graham is not only still alive, but walking around freely and in a position of power over him. His relationship to Graham isn’t even close to his relationship with Clarice Starling, despite the superficial similarities. He looked down on Starling as an FBI trainee, and thus someone not particularly worthy of his attention. He only maintained a rapport with her because of some unadmitted attraction and because it amused him to use her to his advantage. Graham, on the other hand, is the one who took away his freedom, and who he wishes to destroy utterly. And boy, does that come across in Hopkins’ performance.

Directed by Brett Ratner (of Rush Hour 1-3 and X-Men: The Last Stand shame), Red Dragon the film is a surprisingly tight and sharp thriller, managing to weave in elements of the novel that were entirely discarded in Manhunter. One might think that Lecter would overpower the story, given the popularity of the character at the time, but Ted Tally’s script actually manages a deft balancing act between all three of the major players: Graham, Lecter, and The Tooth Fairy (later revealed as The Red Dragon). Even though Lecter arguably gets more screen time than he strictly deserves, it’s never excessive, and at times he even manages to add some humor to the grim proceedings. His brief conversation with a gourmet chef had me rolling with laughter.

Edward Norton (American History XFight ClubMoonrise Kingdom) plays Will Graham as an intelligent profiler, one not easily intimidated by Lecter’s threats, despite being almost gutted by the man. Ralph Fiennes (The End of the AffairHarry PotterSkyfall) plays the harelipped serial killer Francis Dolarhyde, aka The Tooth Fairy and The Red Dragon, with more subtlety than you might expect from the man who played Voldemort. Philip Seymour Hoffman (Magnolia, 25th Hour, The Savages) also appears as tabloid journalist Freddy Lounds, who has some bad history with Graham but manages to cut an ill-fated deal with the agent in the interests of making a quick buck. Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds, RED) plays Graham’s capable wife Molly. Emily Watson (Gosford Park, Punch-Drunk Love, Anna Karenina) plays Dolarhyde’s conveniently blind love interest and co-worker, Reba McClane. Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs, Bad Lieutenant, National Treasure) takes over the role of Jack Crawford from Scott Glenn, an important if undemanding role. Maybe few of the actors bring their A-Game to the film, but none of them do badly, and many of them are quite memorable for what they accomplish.

"It's easier to aim when you're not high, dear."

“It’s easier to aim when you’re not high, dear.”

Despite the worrisome combination of a half-competent director and an aging Hopkins, the film works astoundingly well. It trades the more meditative approach of Silence for the pacing of a popular thriller, but that actually works in its favor. The novel Red Dragon has a fairly languid pace at times along with many poetic digressions, but in film it works best as a fast-paced catch-em and shoot-em-up crime drama. Ratner, surprisingly, was a great choice to direct this material, managing to keep things moving at a steady clip without dropping any important plot threads. Hopkins has a lot of fun hamming it up, but he never takes over the film, and gives Norton and Fiennes plenty of room to do what they need to do.

Red Dragon serves as a pretty good introduction into the Hannibal Lecter cinematic universe. It’s a popular film, no doubt, though one that progresses into a similar but more artistic story in Silence, and finally into the strange but rich world of Hannibal. One could do far worse than Red Dragon even in terms of pop entertainment, but it still maintains much of the novel’s depth. That’s an unusual accomplishment, and it’s nothing to turn one’s nose at. I honestly doubt that the novel could have received a better film adaptation, even if the recent television series is giving it a run for its money.

Coming Soon: Hannibal Rising!


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