Nothing's quite as entertaining as people who like to kill people in peculiar ways. Oh, yeah, sure. War's all fine and good with it's decapitating explosions and organ-shredding bullets, but nothing satisfies the discriminating viewer quite like the ritualistic disposal of a limited group of people by an abused child all grown up.
FBI Agent Will Graham (Edward Norton) made quite a name for himself when he caught Dr. Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) overprescribing himself with other people's sweetbreads. But now another naughty boy is killing random families and putting mirrors in their eyes. The police call him the "Tooth Fairy" because he leaves bite marks in the victims and the police are generaly about that witty. But Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes) refers to himself as The Red Dragon. After all, if "Francis" and the "Tooth Fairy" are the alternatives... Graham uses his sixth sense to reconstruct the crime, but in the end, it is the advice of Hannibal the Cannibal that will break the case. Meanwhile, the generically disturbed Red Dragon finds himself romanced by a horny blind woman (Emily Watson). But when Graham gets too close for comfort, it is his own family's safety he should really be concerned about. Hilarity ensues.
By the way, this is a remake of Michael Mann's Manhunter. Red Dragon isn't what I would call a "bad" movie, but with the exception of its lack of cheesy 80s rock ballads, it's more of a re-cast re-shoot than a re-make. However, the film is a marked improvement from Hannibal. Of course, calling Red Dragon better than Hannibal is sort of like calling pickled eggs better than dry heaving.
Anthony Hopkins doesn't disappoint, although he's as convincingly young as Joe Pesci was in My Cousin Vinny. Still, we should all be afraid of Anthony Hopkins. But this fear is more a residue of The Silence of the Lambs than it is a performance any better than Brian Cox's in the same character in Manhunter. Edward Norton is generally a fine actor, but it's difficult to take him seriously in this role. He sounds too much like an innocent kid to be the kind of emotionally brutalized tough guy William Petersen was in Manhunter. And Ralph Fiennes does a terrific job, although no more creepy than Tom Noonan in the same role. Emily Watson, another terrific performer, is intriguing, as was Joan Allen in the same role. Recognize a pattern?
Like The Blair Witch, I still have no idea what the significance is of The Red Dragon. Oh yeah, sure. It's an interesting painting that our twisted killer is obsessed with, but so what? What does it mean? And there is never really any satisfactory explanation as to why The Red Dragon kills the people he kills. Ok, so maybe they each represent a happy life he didn't have, but is that an excuse for a murder mystery?
There are at least two very scary scenes and, like Manhunter, Red Dragon knows better than Hannibal to keep Dr. Lecter from being overexposed. And there are a few "cute" moments that are entertaining without being too trite. The collected cast, also including cool actors like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Harvey Keitel, Mary Louise Parker and Anthony Heald, makes the film worth watching as a study in studio film production. But all in all, this is just another movie. Brett Ratner does prove that he is capable of directing something other than a Rush Hour movie, but this isn't a very memorable film. One can't help but wonder if the popularity of the entire series of stories isn't due to Jonathan Demme's 1991 success. C
