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The Red Dragon

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ed Norton, Ralph Finnes Score: 4/5 Rewatchability Index: 3/5

Before Clarise there was Agent Graham. Ed Norton is woefully inadequate. The story ends where ‘Silence of the Lambs’ takes off. A prequel to a grand film, and it doesn’t really disappoint. It is miles ahead of ‘Hannibal’. The story starts out with FBI’s blue-eyed boy Will Graham cracking the case of the Chesapeake Murders. Incidentally the maniac turns out to be the doctor he is consulting on the case, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The movie moves on to a set of family murders. Will Graham is called out of retirement, he promptly finds leads others didn’t and then predictably runs into a deadend. So he turns to Dr. Lecter for help.

For people who have seen ‘Silence of the Lambs’, the interactions between Hopkins and Norton lack the sexuality and the tension that Hopkins and Foster shared.

The movie is saved by Ralph Finnes. As the ‘Toothfairy Killer’ he redeems the movie from the ordinary, but fails to take it to the stratosphere inhabited by ‘Silence of the Lambs’.

But for the ones, like me, who happened to be put through the torture of ‘Hannibal’ this movie comes as a welcome relief. There is something good to remember Dr. Lecter by.