Directed by: Ridley Scott; Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Julianne Moore, Giancarlo Giannini, Ray Liotta, Gary Oldman.
To create a character in movies who is refreshing, unique and stereotype-free is quite an achievement. This is what author Thomas Harris did when he thought up FBI agent Clarice Starling for his book The Silence of the Lambs, which was brought to the big screen by director Jonathan Demme in 1991. While some were focused on the brilliant serial cannibal Hannibal Lecter’s methodic madness in that movie, straight-arrow Starling, an FBI trainee designed to pick Lecter’s brain in order to catch a serial killer, was a fascinating character as well. Heading from a troubled childhood to the orderly rigors of law enforcement, so calm and collected that she could easily repeat the offensive “c-word” in a jailhouse conversation with Lecter, Starling was the one who was in danger of being mishandled in the sequel to that movie.
Luckily, no such thing happened. Hannibal, released last weekend, is true to the nature of Silence of the Lambs. Dr. Hannibal Lecter is still frightening and brilliant, and Starling is just as focused on doing the right thing. Julianne Moore, who replaces Jodie Foster in the role, knows just how to play her: when Starling awakes and realizes Hannibal has been in her house, she merely bats her eyelashes and rolls out of bed.
The plot is this – and it’s important to understand, because the film moves so fast and throws in so many references and complicated plot points that it might take a second viewing to catch all of them – Hannibal’s only victim to ever survive, a disfigured millionaire and former kiddie sex abuser named Mason Verger, wants to find Hannibal and have him killed in front of him as revenge. Thus, Verger has a reason to find Lecter before Starling does. Starling herself is coming off of a botched drug-related operation with the DEA and is trying to save her unfairly-tarnished reputation. She gets a letter from Lecter, who is hiding out in Italy, and manages to locate him – but an Italian law enforcement official realizes Lecter is there, too, and wants to find Lecter himself so he can collect Verger’s $3 million reward.
Throw into the mix some clever dialogue, adventure, wit, and picturesque scenes in Italy, and the audience is in for a riveting roller coaster ride through the creepy side of law enforcement. The mantra for deciding to see Hannibal is simply this: If you were comfortable with Silence of the Lambs, it won’t disappoint you. If Silence’s suspense or gore turned you off, avoid Hannibal.
There is one other thing that’s important to understand: The book Hannibal sadly pairs Starling and Lecter as a couple in the end, a couple that speaks to each other in different languages at dinner and hones their sex lives whenever they get the chance. Fortunately, nothing like this happens in the movie. And thank God for that. Such an ending would have been much more gory than anything either film might have offered us for dinner would. – Piggy Rabinowitz