Full Review: Manhunter (1986)‏

People in the Movie:  William Peterson, Dennis Farina, Brian Cox, Tom Noonan

Director:  Michael Mann

Pigeonhole:  Thriller / Crime Drama

The Basics:  The movie is based on the book Red Dragon by Thomas Harris.  Will Graham (Peterson) is a former FBI profiler who is asked out of retirement by his former supervisor Jack Crawford (Farina) to assist on an open case trying to capture a serial killer nicknamed the “Tooth Fairy” (Noonan), who has already murdered 2 families.  Will is reluctant to re-join the FBI, as his previous case tracking and capturing Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecktor left him seriously injured and hospitalized for significant amount of time, not to mention a little “shell shocked”- and hence led to the aforementioned retirement.  Will does agree, and the hunt is on, trying to stop this monster before he gets to another family.  Hannibal Lecktor’s (Cox) advice is sought by Graham, in an attempt to gain behavioral perspective on the “Tooth Fairy”.  

Recommendation: If you like any one of the following: crime dramas, Miami Vice (TV show), William Peterson, or the Hannibal Lector series, you should see this.  I highly recommend it.  The movie is rated R for some violent scenes and imagery.    

My Take: **spoiler alert**  Manhunter was truly ahead of its time.  I note this because it was not originally received well.  This is one of the first times we see the FBI using forensics and behavioral clues to solve crimes on the big screen – as opposed to solving crimes (and thus driving the movie) with interviews, gun fights, actors being “sexy”, car chases, and luck, as it had always been.  Mann’s direction was also very stylized.  He used specific colors in the lighting, the scenery and clothing to denote moods and to make the audience almost “feel” the environment.   His music – a lot of synthesizer – has a very 80’s, Miami Vice feel to it (which makes sense since Mann was directing Miami Vice at this time).   These elements drew negative criticism, and so when the movie came out, it did not succeed critically, or financially.

But fortunately, as the entertainment world progressed, many then, and now, point to this movie as launching the other Lector movies, as well as TV shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The X-Files, Millenium, and The Profiler, to name a few.   In light of the successes of these, critics have gone back and now (rightfully) praise Manhunter.

Peterson did an outstanding job as Will Graham, arguably one of his best roles to date.  I like Tom Noonan in his role as the serial killer Francis Dollarhyde (aka the Tooth Fairy).  His stature (he is 6 foot 6) easily lends itself to be a physically imposing, “scary” character, yet he was still able came off as the shy, tentative introvert that his character was.  There is scene in which Dollarhyde, and his blind girlfriend (Joan Allen) visit a veterinarian (a friend of Dollarhyde’s) who is doing a dental procedure on a full grown tiger.  Dollarhyde and Reba are allowed into the room with the sedated tiger, and there was such great tension as to who was the real predator in the room.  Brian Cox’s portrayal of Lecktor is excellent.  I will have to say that Cox’s mannerisms were much more congruent to the book, than Hopkin’s in Red Dragon (that is a whole other discussion).  All in all, I have state this is great acting and great direction.

At this point I do want to note if you are a book purist, then you may not like Manhunter as much as you would like movie Red Dragon (2002).  Many elements are the same, however, Will Graham’s character drives Manhunter, and Francis Dollarhyde is more peripheral, where in Red Dragon (both movie and the book) Dollarhyde is much more developed.  Manhunter’s ending is also skewed from the book.

Final Thought/Extras/For Fun:  Tom Noonan kept in character so much, during filming he isolated himself from the other actors who were pursuing him.  He did not meet William Peterson until filming the scene at the end where Will comes at him.  Noonan also became so menacing looking from working out during the shoot –plus his height– that crew members were visibly afraid of him… The only decision I did disagree with Mann about was his choice to eliminate the shots with Noonan done up with the Red Dragon (almost full body) tattoo.  I have attached the pictures from my DVD set.  Dollarhyde did have them in the book, and I felt this would have added a neat element…