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Red Dragon
Red Dragon
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êêê
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Rating
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R for violence, grisly images, language, some nudity and sexuality
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Director
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Brett Ratner
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It makes him God
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Starring
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Anthony Hopkins
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Edward Norton
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Ralph Fiennes
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Harvey Keitel
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Emily Watson
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Mary-Louise Parker
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Philip Seymour Hoffman
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Some Hollywood thrillers are better than the rating indicates. "Red Dragon" is somewhat formulaic but, nonetheless, very enjoyable, if you like movies that deal with murder and the criminally insane. As this is a prequel to "Silence of the Lambs," which was followed by "Hannibal," you learn just what got Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) into that holding cell, with the trademark restraints to keep him from harming others. All this, at the beginning of the film, makes it essential that you are in your seat at the start of the movie. The end of the film has a few special touches as well, to the point that you almost expect Jodie Foster to show up as the credits are rolling.
The cast is fun to watch, with Edward Norton as Will Graham, the FBI agent who bagged Lecter and decided to turn in his badge and retire to a beach house in Florida. Let's not think too hard about how a young government employee could be doing so well to retire in such luxury. Molly (Mary-Louise Parker) is Will's wife, who has to go into hiding with her family when it appears that serial killer Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes) may have their family as next in line.
Dolarhyde is one of the key persons who drives the suspense, along with his co worker at a photo lab, Reba (Emily Watson). Sleazebag newspaper reporter Freddy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) gives a bravado performance, that will make many in Hollywood wish they could have some reporters from the scandal sheets travel the same fateful path. And Harvey Keitel fans will enjoy his role as the FBI agent who brings Will out of retirement.
Hannibal Lecter and Hitler will give classical music a bad name if we aren't careful. Hannibal is the cannibal who is brought down by FBI agent Will Graham. But since Will is one step behind Hannibal, they get into a tussle that is almost fatal to both of them. Hannibal ends up in jail and Will leaves the FBI. When two families are killed, close to a full moon, one-month apart with the same modus operandi, one family in Atlanta and the other in Birmingham, Jack Crawford (Keitel) convinces Will to help him for few days. Soon they conclude that the one person that can help understand the mind of the killer, dubbed by the press as the "Tooth Fairy," is Lecter, and that Will must go visit his old nemesis. Dolarhyde has loftier goals in mind, and he calls himself The Red Dragon.
Lecter and Will banter back and forth and eventually progress is made, but with a price. In a vengeful twist, Lecter finds a way to put the Red Dragon on the trail of Will and his family.
As a young child, Dolarhyde was traumatized with threatened castration by his grandmother for wetting his bed. The new odd couple of the day is the psycho Dolarhyde and the needy Reba, who is attractive, smart, but because of her blindness, not on the A-list for most bachelors. The ending of the film sneaks up on you and elevates the enjoyable, but not wonderful, by the numbers thriller, to a cut above the norm. For Hannibal Lecter fans, Red Dragon is as much of a "must see" as the upcoming Harry Potter, James Bond and The Lord of the Rings films. Seek and you shall enjoy.
George O. Singleton © 2002
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