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March 2001
Download the word version, perfect for printing and handing out on street corners!
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Whoa, Nellie! The Emeril Legasse of cannibals is back, and BAM!,
he's up to
his old tricks faster than you can sautÈ Ray Liotta's brain. In a bizarre
avoidance of copyright infringement, this follow-up to Silence of the Lambs
is not technically a sequel to the previous film, but rather is based upon
the novel Hannibal, which is the sequel to the novel Silence of the Lambs.
Despite the fact that this makes no sense, Hannibal is a high quality film,
kind of like a bigger budget Cannibal Ferox with less synthesizers. In
keeping with the not-quite-a-sequel-so-please-don't-sue-us theme, Jodie
Foster is replaced by Julianne Moore, who plays FBI agent Clarice Starling
as less of a troubled, insecure women with parental issues and more of a
puffy-eyed Scully with bulemia. This is of little importance, however, as
the true star of the show is Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lector. Focusing the
film on him is a mixed blessing at best, however, for although you get
maximum mayhem without all the pesky introspection of the first film, giving
Hannibal the majority of the screen time can't help but strip him of some of
his mystique. The viewer soon begins to realize that although Lector remains
a terrifyingly cruel sociopath, he's essentially just a creepy old guy in a
sunhat. He's still threatening and all, but he's clearly getting to that age
where people begin passing gas at inopportune moments and nodding off during
commercials, as evidenced by the canyon-like crevices on Hopkins' face in
every close-up. Granted, his aura of doddering, Walter Mathau-esque senility
is more than compensated for by the countless atrocities he perpetrates
through the film, but it's hard to consistently jump in your seat every time
Rip Van Winkle snaps his dentures at someone. The film is directed by the
great Ridley Scott, and co-scripted by playwright David Mamet, who seems to
have gotten his Turret's Syndrome under control long enough to write a civil
screenplay without losing his fabled ear for dialogue. Scott keeps the
beautiful sets cloaked in a perpetual dimness, which is either a brilliant
piece of cinematography based upon the dark subject matter, or the cameraman
forgot to take his sunglasses off. Either way, it suits the film. The plot
follows Clarice Starling's attempts to track down and recapture Lector, who
has been loose for seven years and working as a curator for an Italian art
museum. Despite his obvious prissiness, the FBI still considers him a
danger, and Clarice is hot on his trail. Also hunting Hannibal is Mason
Verger, a surviving victim of Lector's who has been left in a state of
horrible disfigurement not unlike a creasy Mena Suvari with no lips. Another
terrifying aspect of the film is the aforementioned Ray Liotta, who in my
mind is much more frightening than any serial killer, made doubly so because
he inevitably ends up pale-faced and clammy in every movie he's in,
conjuring up distressing images of a coked-up pedophile watching Romper
Room. And speaking of lax morals, there's something kind of distressing
about this film. You know, aside from the cannibalism. While the first film
focused on Starling's struggles with her inner demons, here character
development plays second fiddle to Hannibal cutting up intestines. While the
concept of the anti-hero is nothing new, a la Pulp Fiction and anything
Clint Eastwood ever did, here it is taken to an extreme. Making a guy who
eats people the hero of a big-budget film seems kind of problematic in my
eyes, though I suppose making jokes about pederasts is only slightly less
distasteful. But then again, you're still reading, so I guess it's society's
problem, not mine.
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