This past week has been an especially good one for director Ridley Scott. Just yesterday morning the Oscar nominations were announced, and Scott?s previous film Gladiator dominated the day, receiving a whopping twelve nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. In both categories Scott has an incredibly good shot at bringing home a statue. This past weekend Scott?s latest film Hannibal was released and it topped box offices, earning more than $50 million in the first three days it was in theaters. Ridley Scott clearly has a lot to cheer about right now.
But as next weekend approaches, the celebrations will quickly die down as he and in fact most of Hollywood waits to see how next week?s box office returns for Hannibal are. The critical response to Hannibal has been less than enthusiastic, and once word of mouth gets out about the film, the theaters might not be as packed as they were last weekend, especially on Valentine?s Day weekend when people will want a less gruesome experience at the movies.
But I?m sure that Scott has little to worry about, if this seasoned veteran of the cinema even does worry about box office numbers any more. While the film might not have raving blurbs from critics to fill its TV ads, those same ads will most assuredly be able to get some mileage out of his recent Academy Award nomination. When you also take into account that next week?s releases look rather pale in comparison, Hannibal?s chances of a repeat of last weekend?s turnout are rather good.
That is, of course, not to mention the fact that the movie itself is nowhere near as bad as critics have been painting it to be. This film, which follows up on the stories of FBI agent Clarice Starling and escaped serial killer Hannibal Lecter, had rather big shoes to fill, what with the incredible success of Silence of the Lambs ten years ago, both with audiences and critics. Couple the audience and critical expectations for the film to do as well as its predecessor with the fact that the actress who originated the role of Clarice Starling (and won an Oscar for her efforts) in Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster, chose to bow out of this film and had to be replaced by Julianne Moore, and you can see that this film already has had to overcome many obstacles.
One main problem critics have found with the film is its lack of the depth of character that Silence of the Lambs had. Starling and Lecter are not as well developed in this film as they were previously, Lecter?s genius not as heightened and the sexual tension between them left unexplored. Yet in my mind these features are not what Hannibal was ever meant to be about. Instead I feel that the purpose of this movie was to highlight Lecter?s influence on the lives of those he?s touched, how he, despite his tendency to dine on human flesh, had found a place in the hearts of many fans of Silence of the Lambs.
To that end we see more about the effect Hannibal?s notoriety has on others than we do of the actual relationship between Starling and Lecter. The focal point of the film, to me, seemed to be relatively minor characters, not the leads of the film. One such character, Mason Verger, is a former victim of Hannibal?s, the only one to have survived. Years ago Hannibal convinced him with his great charm and intellect to mangle his own body for the good doctor?s amusement, and now he is hell-bent on exacting revenge upon Hannibal. Yet the more we see of Mason, the more we realize that his desire for revenge is not due to the fact that he was left hideously deformed from his encounter with Hannibal, but instead upon his arrogance. Dr. Lecter got inside his head and got the better of him, and for that he must pay. Gary Oldman plays Mason in an unbilled performance, and he portrays Mason?s obsession with Lecter with a gruesome coldness and even glee that is appropriate for the character.
The other character given the limelight is an Italian inspector named Pazzi who has located Lecter?s current whereabouts in Florence. Pazzi however, rather than working with Starling on the case, is trying to capture Lecter on his own so he can collect the reward. Giancarlo Giannini has been working for decades in Italian cinema, and he clearly uses his acting experience to flesh out the role, portraying Pazzi as a man afraid of the consequences of his actions yet drawn into dangerous circumstances by the promise of a huge payoff. Both Verger and Pazzi receive are slightly underdeveloped and it is only the quality of Oldman and Giannini?s acting that makes them stand out.
That mixture of danger and charm that Hannibal conveys is perhaps best seen in two even smaller characters. Barney was one of the guards at the asylum he escaped from in the first film, but he too was charmed by the murderer. Today he makes a modest living selling Lecter memorabilia on eBay, convinced that Lecter will never seek him out to kill him because he treated Lecter with respect and Lecter ?prefers to dine on the rude? free-range rude, he called it.? On the other hand we see Verger?s doctor display hesitation at every move Verger makes in his scheme to get revenge, and his final act in the film is one in which he must make a hard-pressed choice between acting out of loyalty to his employer or out of fear of Lecter.
Hopkins as well is delightful (some critics have used the bad pun ?delicious?) in his reprisal of the role that won him the Academy Award. We get lured in at times by the intense charm he radiates, but at other times, like in the final grotesque cooking scene, we see him for the monster he truly is. Hopkins skates that line quite nicely, delivering a few bad one-liners with such dignity that we actually find them amusing, or chilling. If at times Hannibal seems a tad incompetent, I would blame the script leaving Hopkins little room to play with, rather than Hopkins himself.
But Julianne Moore, an actress who I?ve admired in many of her other films including Magnolia and Short Cuts, falls short here with her character. Perhaps she didn?t have as much to do as Jodie Foster did in the role, again a fault of the script, but her portrayal of Starling lacked depth. We never understood why she was so obsessed with Lecter, why after all these years he would still occupy her thoughts.
While the film is more gruesome in its portrayal of Hannibal?s acts of violence than Silence of the Lambs was, these graphically violent scenes certainly accomplished the goal of breaking down Lecter?s mystique. The film will definitely not appeal to all audiences due to the horrific nature of the material it presents, and fans of the previous film might end up sorely disappointed that they don?t get more of the same. But I feel that Hannibal is a quite decent and interesting film, and those critics who said otherwise need to take a step back, lay their expectations aside, and judge the film on its own merit this time. If they do, I think they will be pleasantly surprised at what they find.
