Hannibal (2001)
Directed by Ridley Scott
After having successfully eluded the authorities for years, Hannibal peacefully lives in Italy in disguise as an art scholar. Trouble strikes again when he's discovered leaving a deserving few dead in the process. He returns to America to make contact with now disgraced Agent Clarice Starling, who is suffering the wrath of a malicious FBI rival as well as the media.
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All but destined to cross paths again, the two find a reunion catalyst in one of Lecter's victims, an unbilled and unrecognizable Gary Oldman under mounds of makeup that gives him a passing resemblance to Eric Stoltz in Mask.
The unfathomably wealthy (home is the Biltmore Estate, which served as Melvyn Douglas and Shirley Maclaine's mansion in "Being There") and hideously disfigured Verger is a client of Barney's, being the only surviving victim of Lecter's.
(Verger, incidentally, is played uncredited by Gary Oldman under a load of latex that makes the actor look rather like the authentic Mrs. Bates in Hitchcock's "Psycho.")
Putting audiences on the side of the villain by making the victims repulsive is a trick that Kubrick employed in "A Clockwork Orange."
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He imports his own lush visual style, using his trademark ability to make breathtakingly beautiful photography edgy and dark, as though A Room with a View had been shot by David Fincher.
Scott is known for visual artistry and storytelling prowess (both of which are evident in his three best-known works: Alien , Blade Runner , and Gladiator ), but not character complexity.
After an unbelievably torturous journey from page to screen, during which both original director Johnathan Demme and original star Jodie Foster both jumped ship, Thomas Harris’ altogether nastier sequel to his 1990 smash The Silence of the Lambs finally arrives on our screens, this time directed by Ridley Scott, fresh from directing Gladiator into a sea of Oscar nominations.
Scott ("Gladiator") is, conversely, the definitive head-on director.
But he's far less successful at pacing and construction; the action is oddly lackadaisical and languid, and the big set-pieces (such as Lecter's final encounter with Pazzi and the penultimate pigs-in-the-arena sequence which recalls, on a much smaller stage and to far more freakish effect, the helmer's "Gladiator") are very clumsily cobbled together.
Taking over the reins, director Ridley Scott ("Gladiator") brings Thomas Harris' third novel to feature Hannibal Lecter to the screen.
The long awaited sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs" has arrived with a new director for Jonathan Demme -- Ridley Scott ("Gladiator"), and a new star actress for Clarice Starling (Jodi Foster bowed out) -- Julianne Moore.
As a sequel, "Hannibal" may not be up to "The Godfather: Part II" level, but director Ridley Scott and lead Hopkins have presented us with a buffet worth lingering over.
She was particularly memorable in Silence and in Vanya on 42nd Street (opposite Hannibal's Julianne Moore ).
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The scenes featuring Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) are the stuff of legends.
But Anthony Hopkins effortlessly steals the show as Hannibal Lecter.
It has taken ten years for the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs to reach the screen (much of the delay due to the length of time it took novelist Thomas Harris to pen the book), and, sadly, it's not worth the wait.
Screenwriters David Mamet ("State and Main") and Steven Zaillian ("Schindler's List") have pretty faithfully adapted the Thomas Harris novel for the screen.
Screenwriters David Mamet and Schindler's List's Steven Zaillian (buying prestige, are we?) have wisely jettisoned the book's absurdly dreadful final pages but also eliminated the Oldman character's bodybuilder lesbian sister, who was pretty amusing.
The fault lies with the script, astonishingly lackluster, considering that it was adapted from Thomas Harris' novel by David Mamet ( State and Main ) and Stephen Zaillian ( Schindler's List ).
But the film's success is due almost entirely to the scriptwriting team of David Mamet (State and Main) and Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List), who smooth out the rougher edges of Thomas Harris' novel and actually improve the story.
I had hoped that the first-rate filmmakers, including director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) and writers David Mamet (State & Main) and Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List), would use the opportunity to fix the book's mistakes.