 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. So this is for the 1986 film Manhunter. And if you're a fan of Silence of the Lambs, of Hannibal Lecter, of any of that series of films, but also the TV show Hannibal, this is where it all started with Manhunter. At least as far as cinematically goes, this is where it all started. Obviously there were books before that, which I'll talk about a little bit, very little bit. But this is where you start. If you have not seen this, just know Spoilers, lots of spoilers in this review because I'm breaking down the film. Now when I watch this and I'm doing this review, it's available on the Shutter streaming service so you can check it out there. This one was written and directed by Michael Mann, who also did some films such as Thief, The Keep, The Last of the Mohicans, which I love, Heat, which I also love, The Insider, Ali, and Public Enemies, that's not all of his films, that's just some of the bigger ones people recognize. This is based on the book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and his books also inspired all the films such as all the Hannibal Lecter films. I think it was Hannibal, I think there was a second one after that or Hannibal Rising or something like that. There's the Red Dragon movie that had come out that's kind of a redo of Manhunter then obviously Signs of the Lambs and the Hannibal TV show, so all that spawned so much. But this, like I said, this is where it started and it's an interesting start especially for 1986, very interesting start in my opinion. So David Lynch and David Cronenberg were actually considered to direct this because Dino De Laurentiis, who's the producer of this film and is a producer of tons and tons of films, look up his IMDb credits as far as producer goes. He had worked with them on The Dead Zone as well as Dune and Blue Velvet so obviously he worked with Lynch on Dune and Blue Velvet and Cronenberg on The Dead Zone. So it's very interesting to watch this film and then step back and think what would this have been like with David Lynch? What would this have been like with David Cronenberg? Very different films. I mean even just between Cronenberg and Lynch, I think Michael Mann is a way more restrained director as opposed to the two Davids. So I think we would have gotten more wild versions in a sense if it was Cronenberg or Lynch. And I kind of wish we had gotten one of those but I still think this film is good. I still enjoy it quite a bit. So Tom Noonan who plays Dollarhide, Francis Dollarhide in this, the main guy who's becoming the Red Dragon, by the way, favorite part of the film is Tom Noonan. He reportedly actually stayed away from other cast members during the filming of this so that his scenes that he actually had with them would kind of up the tension with them. I think that's a really cool idea. I've heard of other actors doing that before in many other roles. I think it probably works pretty well to be honest because if you're not socializing with someone you don't know anything about them. So once you show up in the scene it becomes much easier to treat them as foe and kind of be more afraid of them especially with someone who looks and acts like Tom Noonan does in this film who he's very meek, he's very demure but he's also got this kind of menacing feel to the way that he presents himself and the way that he delivers lines. It's that kind of like soft spoken potentially unhinged personality that works really well in this in my opinion. So those considered for the role of Will Graham which was done by William Peterson who was okay I think but other people who read for that role were Richard Geer, Mel Gibson, Jeff Bridges, Mickey Rourke, Kyle Lachlan, Harrison Ford and Don Johnson. Other than Don Johnson I think any of the other one one of those people probably would have done a better job. Oh sorry except Richard Geer. I hate Richard Geer. It's a long thing. I'm not going to get into it right now but I really hate Richard Geer. If you really want to know in the comments I can tell you go ahead and ask but anyway it would have been more interesting I think with a better actor. I'm not saying that Peterson did a terrible job I'm just saying he did fine and I feel like with Graham being the main character you kind of needed someone who had more oomph behind their acting performance with that character because he's going through a lot obviously mentally and physically he's going through a lot. There's a disturbing tone that's immediately captured with the killer POV that opens up this movie with him sneaking into the house and how kind of amateurish and real it makes it feel with that POV and like how kind of gritty it looks in a sense. I think that helps to make it more disturbing to the viewer to make it feel more raw in a sense so I really do think that's a good way to start the film because it gives it that feeling of being disturbing and and messed up from the get-go which is exactly what they were going for with it. You think Crawford is in the beginning is going to give Graham photos of a crime scene but he doesn't by giving him the family photos he's trying to make him relate the victims to his family and think you know what about my family I mean that's obviously something that is done in life a lot where people are trying to get someone to do something for them so they appeal to what they know they love they appeal to what they know is close to them and obviously Graham being a family man and not wanting to lose his family obviously Crawford's really trying to appeal to the father in him the husband in him to be like look these are whole families right now or these are families that were whole that were totally snuffed out by this maniac and you're our only hope so if you can't help us you just know that you're kind of signing off on the death warrants of other families so it's kind of a you know it's manipulative but he does what he can to get them there you wouldn't think but Graham dictating the murder events while showing the crime scene a little actually does work where they were doing it where it was kind of showing him face on and he's just like kind of reading over the events of what happened and they show you like little bits of the aftermath of the crime scene I think it actually did work it also drives home how good Graham is it figuring out what happened I think that furthers the narrative that he's like the only one who can do this because he's so good at it so that's a dual-purpose scene for that reason it's even more disturbing it gives you the events of what happened without showing you the actual events which a lot of times can be scarier because that whole thing you know whatever you bring up in your mind is going to be scarier than what they put on film I think it drives that as well so I really like that they did make that choice that Michael Mann did the inclusion of Graham saying there's missing time in the events of the murders gives the eerie feeling that something particularly sick was going on with dollar hide obviously at this point you don't know what's dollar hide you just know this unknown maniac basically biting people putting the the mirror the pieces of the mirror on the eyes then you get to the point where you could tell they said that he took his gloves off and actually touched the woman I mean all these things just serve to kind of build up this more disturbing feeling this this kind of amalgamation of like disgusting and messed up and disturbing that that is growing with the audience members as you're watching it to just give you the more unsettled feeling and it works the drive home sorry they drive drive home real tension between Graham and the other officers like with his disagreement with Crawford on what forensic examiner that they should use which didn't really make sense to me just because Crawford was so aggressive in going after Graham like this is the guy we have to have so I kind of feel like you should have been backing off and being like look whatever you want whoever you want to use like you just get it done we just need you because that's how he was acting initially and then he's kind of are used with him at numerous times and is telling him that no you do it this way not that way well the whole purpose you went to get Graham whole purpose for him is because he does it his way and obviously you were recognizing that you need his way so that kind of didn't really make sense I think that's kind of a little bit of a issue with the writing in my opinion not a major one but a little bit note that during the part where Graham runs from the psych jail where Hannibal Lecter is played by Brian Cox who did a decent job he's just not Anthony Hopkins they show his shaky POV and a shot of blurred grass from his POV this is to put the audience in the head of that character to have you experience as an audience member as an audience member basically the anxiety and the fear and the panic that Graham is going through at that moment and I think from a visual standpoint it is effective it really is effective because you can see visually what he's feeling and I as an audience member kind of got what they were doing and I'm sure most people did so it worked well and there's a lot of that that kind of camera work in this film that works things definitely becoming a lot more interesting when you find out Lecter and Dollarhide are corresponding with each other that may be my favorite part of the film actually is when they're introducing that little aspect of it because obviously Graham is going and trying to work with Lecter to track down Dollarhide but little does he know until this point in the film that Lecter has been corresponding with Dollarhide behind his back that it just makes it more dangerous it adds this interesting twist to it and it makes it more intriguing from the aspect of what is the connection between Lecter and Dollarhide now that said they also kind of drop it after that in a sense like you don't get a whole lot of Lecter other than that you just have the conversation over the phone about God which I'll talk about in a little bit that Lecter has with Graham but other than that they kind of drop Lecter I think he should have been a more a larger role in the film just because it just seems like he's just there for a little bit and not as important as he maybe should be in the film just saying underutilized is pantyhose on Dollarhide's head supposed to be scary because it actually just looks ridiculous I don't know if at that point they were trying to you know have it be a situation where he's partially trying to hide his face from the reporter who he had kidnapped and then kills in great fashion which I'll talk about in a second but it looked dumb like it just looked ridiculous it actually made me laugh when I saw the pantyhose thing there's nothing disturbing or interesting about it and I think it actually detracts from the acting of Tom Noonan because it just it just gets you focusing on the pantyhose basically and they're just like what is going on here just an odd choice the burning body in the wheelchair is unexpected and very very cool especially how they ended up having it come right at the camera and the way it stops and then it just kind of goes away really good looking I wasn't expecting it that's one of the things when I'm not expecting it and it looks really good I'm particularly happy really like that when Graham Graham talks to his son about his mental health issues it made me think how during this time period that wasn't actually talked about that much so in a way this is kind of forward thinking film wise and societally at least not in a sympathetic way at that point so film in general had had stuff about mental health in it back then in the 80s and prior but it was more from the aspect of the bad guy you know like dollar hide basically where it's just like oh this person has mental health issues this person has something wrong with them in their brain therefore they're evil therefore they're deviant therefore they're a problem for society the fact that the good guy Graham is talking about his mental health issues I think is a very progressive step for this film for its time period just for its time period because consider it's 1986 so just a just an observation not a fan of the fact that they used a real sedated tiger in this the scene where dollar hide takes reba the the blind woman the woman who is blind sorry that's the way that you should say it by the way don't say blind woman say woman who is blind because if you're putting blind first that's identifying the person by blindness and not who they are as a person just saying but anyway that whole scene where dollar hide takes reba to like feel that tiger as it's sedated that was a real tiger that was sedated and the guy with it was an actual veterinarian I don't like that stuff uh it's very unnecessary not just for the point that you're sedating an animal just for a film which is ridiculous but also the fact that it didn't add anything to the film it truly did not add anything to the film at least for me I know you know if you feel differently go ahead and put it in the comments you can tell me why it did add something for you that's fine but for me it seemed out of nowhere as a scene it didn't seem to really matter at all and therefore you just don't have it or if you're gonna have it you don't even need to show the whole tiger just have her stroking the fur it's fine um we don't need a sedated actual tiger on there that's stupid that's messed up that's animal abuse basically so and I know that I've reviewed many other films that have animal abuse I'm just saying this seems particularly ridiculous because it's not needed at all really um yeah it seems that a lot of dollar hides interest in Reba ends up spawning from her not being able to see him physically and what he actually might be up to he finds a lot of comfort in that but that's not it there's also a component of recognizing another person who's different within society in her because of his cleft palate you can see that that's something he's very conscious of especially when she wants to touch his face at that one point and he doesn't want her to which is I think he actually like touches his cleft palate or they focused on it at least with the camera work to let you know that he doesn't feel good about that and probably why he is such a withdrawn meek person in the first place has to do with his appearance with the cleft palate she could be his balance as well Reba could be dollar hides balance because everything driving his crimes like they talk about where Graham talks about it is based on vision it's all about him seeing certain things even down to the use of the smashed mirrors on the women's eyes it's about reflection it's about seeing himself and seeing himself ascend to something else being powerful being something other than what he views himself as and the things that he does so it's all about visuals you even see it in the home movies that he ends up watching before he goes out and cases the families he's going to try and kill so it's very visual driven and she's his counterbalance then Reba because she does not have vision and so I think that's why it's it's written in the story that way and you even see how Reba is potentially able to balance dollar hideout and take him away from doing what he was doing because she starts to actually engage and have a relationship with him they sleep together you can see that he feels happy he cries about it after they have sex and you see a change in him personality wise he goes from being very kind of blank faced and cold to actually showing a little bit of emotion and being a little more even keel when he's dealing directly with her and he seems very driven by this new focus on her so it kind of played to me like that was moving him away from this obsession of transcending to red dragon and you see that even more when he's you know casing out her house basically because he's I guess he's trying to figure out if she's with any other guys and that one guy walks her home and he misinterprets what's going on as as them you know getting physically close and then kills the guy and then goes in and abducts her and everything and he literally makes a statement about that Francis isn't there anymore basically that it did at that point it has forced him that little moment to fully switch from considering being Francis again to going full on red dragon and just focusing totally on transcending which means more murders basically so yeah lector's call with graham about god having power and being able to get close to being god by doing similar acts of taking lives cuts to the heart of the doctor uh in information what I'm sorry of the drive for lector and for dollar hide I'm sorry the way I put my notes in I messed it up but so basically how lector was talking about you know god is powerful and god can you know take lives basically so myself lector and this person dollar hide by taking lives we are getting as close as we can to being god because it's a godly act um so it's about power it's about becoming better than everyone because where you start out in life at least for dollar hide you're you feel much lower on a on a sociological ladder because of how society makes you feel because of how people treat you because of the way he looks and acts and you know just is so I thought that was interesting because it was really pointing at during that conversation at what is driving what drove lector what is currently driving dollar hide and if lector would get out what drives him again so graham walking through the crime scene and visualizing like he's dollar hide goes back to what lector said earlier that he is just like him you know he was talking much earlier the first time they see him which is why it caused him with all that anxiety and panic and he runs out of the building is that he saw some of himself or he's too similar to lector to the guy he had worked for um actually it's just has to do with lector at that point but then it it goes in with dollar hide because you see a lot of comparisons between lector and dollar hide and the fact that lector and dollar hide are corresponding with each other so graham had been fighting that basically because as he talked to his son going through the lector case it really messed him up psychologically it really caused a lot of trauma for him so he went and saw it you know mental mental health counseling um although he doesn't call it that obviously but now he decides to kind of settle back into feeling close to someone like lector by channeling dollar hide in a sense and understanding his motivations as he is able to which makes him obviously feel very uncomfortable and very much like he's not the family man that he knows himself to be because it's disturbing to feel that is basically what this gets to what graham is able to feel from the perspective of dollar hide disturbs him scares him because he thinks that he has the ability to end up being like that which i think the handable tv show covers a lot more of that type of psyche that's going on with graham in in depth the way things play out reba could have potentially turned dollar hide back to being himself and away from chasing his transformation um but with the misunderstanding it undoes all that um sorry basically already said that but graham is stupid for jumping through the window in the end in his confrontation with dollar hide when he has the gun uh he easily could have just shot him through the window i found it very ridiculous very over the top i understand why they were doing that because it just you know it looks cool with it's more interesting it's more action packed but it's dumb like it's dumb it's just a bad part of the film but you can let me know did you like it in particular put it in the comments i hated it i thought it was a stupid but that's just one thing within the film uh like i said william peterson's performance and tom newton's performance awesome uh his calm and meek dialogue delivery makes dollar hide i think particularly disturbing i thought he brought a lot to that character and i love the way he played him uh yeah he did great tom newton my favorite part of this michael man really tries to line up camera shots to be as exact as possible for the positions that characters are in when they're talking to each other a few prime examples in the beginning when crawford and graham are sitting on that log on the beach and they're talking to each other when you're show showing from the side of crawford it's showing his back basically looking at graham then when it's from the side of graham it's showing from that the back portion of crawford to grams or to uh back portion of yeah car crawford's back to crawford's face from the perspective of graham so if you go back and watch that scene you'll see what i mean like the lining up of it there's also a scene where they have graham and lector when they're talking through the bars the bars were lined up exactly so that they were you know standing across from each other and they shot it that way which i think is just attention detail so i'm just saying this and it was a long way to go through it i was just saying this just to point out the detail and how particular michael man is with setting up shots like that man also really like shots that show characters as silhouettes that's another big thing that he did a lot i found it a little bit annoying to do it you know once or twice fine but he did it like multiple times even at the very end where it's just showing all the silhouettes uh against the the rising sun it's like i feel like the music is mismatched a lot of the time in this film but it actually kind of ends up working uh like my favorite sorry well like my favorite mismatching of music to the scene when dollar hide was in his car that that before he starts flipping out when he sees reba uh with the guy who was walking her home i thought that was a really interesting moment of really mismatching the music with what's going on but somehow it worked and it was kind of a genius moment for that reason and i think a lot of the mismatching had to do with they were choosing the song for its lyrics because if you listen to the lyrics it's basically about power and having power and that's kind of what's going on with dollar hide at that moment so it's kind of a signaling to the audience of the mental state and what's being thought by dollar hide right then the film is two hours but it doesn't actually seem that slow for what that runtime is so kudos bravo for doing it that way michael man i'm down usually i don't like longer films but when it doesn't feel that long that is fine i have no problem investing the time as long as you know the time is warranted for what the story is so anyway obviously i enjoyed this film it's not like the best film it still stands up pretty well so out of five stars with half stars in play i'm gonna give it a three star rating i think it's a solid three star i was between three and three and a half but in the end there's just not enough in my opinion to get it to the three and a half so i'm going three but that's still good i enjoyed it uh and like i said it's on shutter at the moment when i'm reviewing this like i said before give me your thoughts on this in the comments let's talk about it um or if you want to talk about any of the other things like silence of the lambs although it's been a while since i watched that i should revisit it uh also the handable show i really want to revisit that but anyway do me a favor hit that subscribe button if you already are subscribed thank you very much greatly appreciate it if you aren't it is quick it is painless it costs you nothing and it keeps me motivated it 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