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 FBI-man
Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina) has a problem. Two Georgia families in two
Georgia cities have been brutally murdered. He knows that the two crimes
are connected, based on the killer’s modus operandi, and the clincher is
that the killings are happening based on the lunar cycle, which leaves
Jack only three weeks before the next full moon and before the killer,
dubbed “The Tooth Fairy” because of his penchant for taking bites out of
his victims, strikes again. Jack has no choice |
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but to call on
retired FBI agent and expert criminal profiler Will Graham (William
Petersen). Will Graham is retired because his last case, when he caught
the infamous Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox), drove him over the
psychological edge. To catch the killer, he tried to become the killer,
and he almost succeeded too well in becoming the killer, ultimately
endangering his own family. Still, feeling the need to prevent another
family from being brutally slain, Will accepts the job. One of his first
tasks is to visit Dr. Lecktor, so he can once again familiarize himself
with the taste of catching killers.
Michael Mann has directed some excellent movies in his career, including
1995’s Heat and 2004’s Collateral; but in 1986, Mann
was best known for having created TV’s Miami Vice, a show that
just oozed cool. And with this film, he found himself ahead of the cool
curve again, helming a tale of criminal profiling before criminal
profiling became … well ... cool. And Petersen’s portrayal of Will
Graham brings to mind a combination of different fictional
crime-fighters: Don Johnson’s Sonny Crockett from Miami Vice
(only not as pretty ... and wearing socks); David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder
from
The X-Files (without the quirkiness ... and without the aliens),
and Lance Henrikson’s Frank Black from Millennium (only ...
happier).
Making a notable debut appearance in this film is literature’s most
infamous flesh-eater, Dr. Hannibal Lecktor. (Note: in The Silence of
the Lambs, his last name is spelled L-E-C-T-E-R, but in the credits
of this film, it’s spelled L-E-C-K-T-O-R). Brian Cox is nowhere near as
menacing as Anthony Hopkins is when playing the same character, but he
doesn’t have to be, as he is not the centerpiece of the plot; Graham is
and should be.
The other star in this film, almost upstaging the actors, is the
audio-visual style. So striking is Mann’s use of imagery and music, as
it was on Miami Vice, that there are times you wonder if you’re
not actually watching a two-hour music video. Not that this is a bad
thing, as the pleasing aesthetics nicely offset the brutal subject
matter, preventing the film from being too dark.
Ultimately, to watch Manhunter today is to watch a film that is
at once nostalgic and ahead of its time, and always an excellent
thriller.
Michael Nazarewycz is a
US-based Writer for UK-based
Filmoria.com.
He also blogs at
ScribeHard On Film. He can be reached via Twitter
@ScribeHard.
