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Anthony Hopkins rides again in the terrible Hannibal |
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal Lecter), Julianne Moore
(Clarice Starling), Gary Oldman (Mason Verger), Ray Liotta (Paul Krendler),
Frankie R Faison (Barney Matthews), Giancarlo Giannini (Chief Inspector Rinaldo
Pazzi), Francesca Neri (Allegra Pazzi), Zeljko Ivanek (Dr Cordell Doemling)
For Dino De Laurentis, The
Silence of the Lambs was always the one that got away. Owning the movie
rights to the Lecter character, de Laurentis allowed Orion, producers of The Silence of the Lambs, to use the
character name for free. De Laurentis
was desperate to make his own Hannibal Lecter film, to cash in on Lambs success – so much so he would have
put any old crap on the screen so long as it was connected to Lecter. Perhaps
Thomas Harris wanted to test that out with his novel Hannibal, a blatantly for-the-money piece of pulp.
Hannibal is
everything that Silence of the Lambs
is not. Where Jonathan Demme’s film was subtle, insidious and unsettling this
is brash, gory and garish. Harris’ serial killer works always circled around
the possibility of tipping into a sort of Poesque-Gothic netherworld. Hannibal dives in head first,
reinventing its central character as a sort of Robin Hood of murderous
psychopaths and introducing everything from vengeful faceless paedophiles, to
Dantesque murders and man-eating hogs. The plot, such as it is, sees Hannibal
Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) living under an assumed identity in Florence. Back in
America he is being hunted not only by Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore) but
also Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, unbilled under a host of make-up) who wants
revenge after being hideously disfigured by Lecter. Will Lecter turn the tables
on these adversaries?
Both Jonathan Demme and Jodie Foster were offered more money
than they knew what to do with for this film. Both turned it down, citing the
book – and its grotesque and bizarre outcome that see Lecter and Starling
becoming lover-killers together – as the major factor. Foster in particular was
out-spoken about how she saw the books extremity as a betrayal of the work she
did with the character in the first film.
No such concern for Hopkins though, who took a bumper pay
cheque to return. Hopkins always said Lecter was an easy role to play –
basically a creepy voice and a lot of actorly tricks – and it certainly makes
it easy for Hopkins to coast through the part here. Really Hopkins treats the
role no differently from the countless chat shows where he had been asked to
say “Hello Claressse”, the only real difference being he was paid about
$20million to do it here. This is Hopkins on unthinking autopilot, in a film
that tries to play up the black comedy but instead becomes a ludicrous,
offensive farce, drowning in blood.
Ridley Scott directs and his painterly visuals and mastery
of the epic shot strips comes at the cost of the very things that made the
original film so involving and tense. The Hitchcockian suspense and intimacy of
Demme’s direction is jettisoned. Instead everything is a dialled up to a
brightly coloured 11. The entire film mistakes gore, blood and overblown,
cartoonish villainy for horror. Watching people being mauled by wild hogs, or
some more unfortunate being lobotomised and made to eat his own brain isn’t
scary it’s more gross. And because nothing feels remotely real in this film, it
doesn’t even carry much impact.
The entire film is based around the fact that it’s Hannibal
we’re paying to see – especially Hopkins reprising the role – so by Jiminiy we
better work a little bit to make this lethal killer from Lambs into something a bit closer to an anti-hero. So instead,
Lecter is rejigged as a sort of charming, amoral cannibal. The sort of guy who
prefers to eat the rude and unmannered, who loves art and is only really dangerous
when provoked. The film carefully gives us reasons to dislike everyone Lecter
kills, and slowly falls in love with his sinister magnetism.
This reduces Julianne Moore – in a truly thankless task –
trying to both forge some sort of identity for Clarice from the story that is
both unique and a continuation of what Jodie Foster did so well in the first
film. It’s not entirely her fault that she fails. This is a film that depowers
Clarice, that goes as far as it dares to turn her into a moth around Hannibal’s
flame. The film backs away from the romance of the book (even if the film hints
at it enough), replacing the eventual ending with something almost as stupid
but at least doesn’t turn Clarice into a brain guzzling serial killer.
The plot flies around two arcs, one set around Hannibal in
Florence the other on his return to America. Both carry no resemblance to the
real world. The first does at a least have a decent performance of nervy greed
from Giancarlo Giannini as the Italian detective who (wrongly) feels he can go
toe-to-toe with Hannibal. The second revolves around Gary Oldman’s (unbilled –
due to an argument over billing or a sly joke, depending on who you talk to)
repulsive Mason Verger, a villain so revoltingly gothic you can’t believe in
him for a second.
The film looks good and has a decent score, but it’s
basically a claret splashed mess that can’t decide whether it’s a horror or
some sort of black comedy. It settles for being nothing at all. A truly
terrible movie, where everyone is there for the money and I imagine no one
thought about the movie for a second once their work on it was done.
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