Hannibal
(2001)
Rated: R
Runtime: 2 Hours and 11 Minutes
Reviewer: Dale
Grade: BThere is a scene near the end of "Hannibal". Let us refer to it as "The Dinner Party". This scene is so gruesome, outrageous and delightfully dark that it will be remembered and referred to for years to come. I also fear that, like the "Hair Gel" scene in "There's Something About Mary" this scene will also be an invitation for someone to trump it. It will be an invite (considering this film's gargantuan opening weekend) for the genre to move further and further in this direction and, unlike this scene, with increasingly poor results.
For crafting a scene such as this, a scene that elicited more groans and winces and panicked, surrealistic laughter than any I can readily recall, I must give this movie a bit of credit. The filmmakers had real balls to put this scene in the film. It was in the book, yes, but that didn't mean that it was guaranteed to make it into the film. Many things from the book, many great things, were excised. And I can't help thinking that the movie would have been a much better one had the filmmakers not decided to wimp out. Had they decided to retain the ending of the book and many of the deleted characters, this would have been a far more fulfilling movie.
As it is, it works as a marvelous freak show through the world of deviant behavior. But it could have been much more.
You should know the plot by now. Hannibal the Cannibal (Anthony Hopkins, brilliant as always) is on the loose. He once advised a man to peel off his own face and feed it to dogs. This man, Mason Verger (Gary Oldman who, truth be told, is unsettling with or without the makeup) wants to capture Hannibal before the FBI can and administer his own form of grisly revenge. There, now you know all that you need to know. There is a subplot involving an Italian police officer (Giancarlo Gianini) that takes up a little too much time. But I must admit that just as I was beginning to get restless, this subplot took care of itself. This subplot took up a few more pages of the book than necessary also, but oh well. There are Sardinians with expertly-trained boars. There are unnecessary trips to the carnival. There are bizarre dinners and gruesome deaths. And all of these are tremendously fascinating. Particularly considering last year's promises in Hollywood to "get tough on violence". There is plenty of violence here, much of it ironic and deliciously hilarious. There is a lot of pitch black humor. There are plenty of opportunities for Anthony Hopkins to show his stuff, and lots of stuff it is. I must mention a single teardrop near the end of the film that is more eloquent and fleshes Hannibal out more than pages of dialogue would have done. Julianne Moore is good in this movie but she never quite erases memories of Jodie Foster (this is not entirely her fault). And the movie moves a bit too slowly. There are, perhaps, a few too many trips to the opera, a few too many shots of Florence at sunset. And the characters are not as fleshed out as they were in the book. Yes, I know that a book can delve more into the psyches of its characters. I understand that. But with a couple of the flatter scenes dispatched, there might have been more opportunity to get inside the uniquely twisted mind of Mason Verger or to better understand the Sardinians or to include the great character of Mason's lesbian sister Margot (who was integral to the plot of the book). When you have characters this distinctive, after all, it is a true shame not to get to know them better.
But the movie works more often than it fails. And even if it doesn't succeed completely, it is unique. It is unlike any movie you have ever seen. But I loved the book. The book is one of the best things I have ever read. And if you remove the book's original ending (and ballsy ending) then everything leading up to that ending becomes sort of pointless. Thus, the entire movie seems like a prelude to something that will never happen. It seems like the warmup to a completely different game. And the movie strives a bit too hard to prove itself classy, a feat that "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Manhunter" pulled off without even really trying. But it is a ride unlike any that you have ever taken, and are ever likely to take. And that, in and of itself, has its own merits.
But if at all possible......Read the book instead. It's the same price as seeing the movie, and you have it forever. Think of it that way.
Reviewer: Jones
Grade: B
I wanted to love this film. I really did. After ten years of waiting since we were given the cinematic gem that is "The Silence Of The Lambs" and fifteen years since the film world was introduced to Hannibal Lecter in "Manhunter". Having seen the former long ago (and loving every minute of it) and the latter just a week ago for the first time (and loving practically the entirety of it) hopes were high for "Hannibal".
Perhaps to high in fact. In retrospect, I think this film suffers from the same sort of heightened expectations that "The Phantom Menace" suffered from. The sort of high hopes that it is unlikely any film could manage to satisfy.
All of the elements were in place. Anthony Hopkins is back to reprise his role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Julianne Moore is here in place of Jodie Foster in the role of Clarice Starling. I love Jodie, but I think that this was an inspired casting move by the powers that be. I would have accepted no one other than Julianne in this role, because she is good enough to make the world forget all about Jodie Foster. Which is exactly what she ends up doing. David Mamet ("The Untouchables") is also involved, adding his considerable talents to the screenplay. Director Ridley Scott ("Blade Runner") brings his "Gladiator" team with him in editor Pietro Scalia and composer Hans Zimmer. In other words, the prevailing opinion would be that only good things could come from this film.
For the most part, that is the case, but it also has it's fair share of faults that could have been shored up quite easily. Before we get to that, let's delve into the story.
Dr. Lecter has been loose in Europe for eight years, since he escaped from that cell in Memphis, Tennessee. Clarice Starling has continued with her career in the FBI. The big things that were expected of her have never really materialized over the time since she tracked down Buffalo Bill all those years ago.
Lecter has taken to the idea of becoming a professor at a major university in Italy. Perhaps trying to lead a normal life for a change? Clarice is helping track down HIV positive drug merchants. Neither is as we remember them.
Enter Mason Verger (Gary Oldman). Mason was Lecter's fourth victim, and the only one who managed to survive. That survival has left him relegated to a wheelchair and horribly disfigured. So horrible is his disfigurement that one cannot tell that Oldman is lurking beneath the flesh. It is hard not to cringe when seeing his wretched state. I know I winced when I first caught a glimpse. I think that director Ridley Scott succeeded in his goal to make this character look truly horrid.
So what does this horrid looking creature have to do with the plot? Well, Verger is understandably pissed that the man that is responsible for his current condition is roaming about free in the world. He is a rich man and has put out a reward for any information that can lead him to Lecter. Revenge is the only thing that is on this man's mind.
He manages to get his lead from an Italian policeman named Rinaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini). Pazzi has decided to withhold information from the FBI, so that he can capture Lecter on his own and claim the reward. This takes shape through an, at times, interesting game of cat and mouse between he and Lecter. I felt that this portion of the film was where it began to lose it's focus. During the segment involving Pazzi and Lecter, Clarice is all but forgotten. We see her, every so often, in a basement going over Lecter's files. She is not a key part of the story at this juncture of the film. This is a problem. The thing that made "Silence Of The Lambs" work as well as it did was the interplay between Clarice and Lecter. That key detail is barely even broached until the final forty-five minutes of the film.
With the exception of the film's abrupt ending, these final forty-five minutes are nearly flawless in design and execution. Unspeakable things will happen in these final moments. These are things that are not as god-awful horrible as they have been made out to be. Crotches are stabbed, entrails spilt upon the ground and a scalp is peeled. I found myself laughing during the majority of these moments, because I thought they were humorous in a very dark way. I think that is what the filmmakers were trying to do in these scenes and, for the most part, managed to pull off.
Don't get me wrong. I did like like this movie, but not in the way I had hoped to. It has many great moments to speak of. The opening battle at the fish market, which introduces us to Julianne Moore as Clarice Starling. As I said earlier, she will make you completely forget Jodie Foster. This happens, because Julianne doesn't try to be Jodie. She, instead, chooses to become Clarice Starling and she does a fine job when she is given the chance. There is a great moment after the fish market battle. Clarice has been very strong-willed at the market, but when she gets home she breaks down in tears at the thought of what she has just been through. This was an amazing moment. In that moment Clarice became more than a beloved part of the film experience. In that moment she became human. An amazing transformation that took about five seconds of screen time to accomplish.
The film also has a wonderfully dark sense of humor. While Hopkins is inhabiting the role of Lecter he manages to deliver another highly quotable line of dialogue: "I'm seriously considering having your wife for dinner." Sadly, I think I was one of about fifteen people who laughed. Can laughs only be elicited through the use of dick and fart jokes anymore? I'm really beginning to wonder. Other great moments of laughter are delivered, such as when it is divulged that Lecter once claimed one of his victims in order to better a symphony that he thought highly of. This dark humor runs rampant throughout the course of the film. I felt this was a nice touch for the film. It brought out a side of Hannibal that we caught a couple of glimpses of in "The Silence Of The Lambs".
Ridley Scott's direction is, at times, at it's high level of quality and, at others, decidedly misguided. His visual style is one that has been proven to have few equals and, in this respect, he delivers. The visuals are beautiful with the location work in Italy being the highlight of the completed work. There is one shot, along a river, in Italy that made me want to get on a plane immediately and make my way overseas. The downside of his work, which I referred to as misguided, could have been amended by cleaving about twenty minutes from the run time. The majority of the cutting would have been done during the segments involving Pazzi and Lecter. A great deal of it was interesting, but there is also a lot of fat here that is completely unnecessary to the furthering of the plot. There are a couple of times where the film nearly comes to a standstill when dealing with this subplot. Verger's character wasn't fleshed out very well either. We are given a sick, twisted, horribly disfigured man and not much else. It would have been nice to get a little deeper into this character, as he ended up feeling like little more than a plot device to bring about the inevitable confrontation between Starling and Lecter.
On the bright side, Hans Zimmer's score is a definite highlight of the film. Throughout the film's first half you feel as if you have barely acknowledged it's existence, but by the time you are deep into the second half of the film you realize that it has done it's job. It has worked it's way under your skin. It has gotten into your head, and it doesn't have any intention of leaving any time soon. Zimmer truly is a force of late. His work here and his masterful score for "Gladiator" stand as two of the better ones that I have heard in years. Bravo Hans.
I know it doesn't sound like it, but I really did enjoy this film. I just feel like it left a lot to be desired. With a little liposuction on the fatty run time and an enhanced amount of screen time for Julianne Moore this film could have realized the greatness that it so desperately hoped to attain.
Unfortunately that greatness is only intermittently realized and in the end the film is just left wanting that greatness which it could not attain.