Hannibal "On a related subject, I must confess to you....I'm giving very serious thought to eating your wife." I'll go out on a limb and say it: that line, delivered by the title character of Hannibal, tops the "fava beans and Chianti" quote from its ten-years-prior cinematic predecessor. The superlatives may end on that point, but no one involved in the production of Hannibal really intended to "top" Silence Of The Lambs. What this latest Thomas Harris adaptation does offer, on the other hand, is a drastically-different type of film. Whereas 1991's Silence and 1986's Manhunter (the second named is based upon Harris' Red Dragon novel) were firmly grounded in FBI procedure, forensic science and a taunting, brilliant jailed madman, Hannibal re-invents the saga's returning characters--starting with Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) himself. But in the interest of story continuity, we'll start with FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, seamlessly replacing Jodie Foster). A botched drug raid has made a shambles of her career with the Bureau, much to the delight of corrupt higher-up Paul Krendler (Ray Liotta). Starling's one-time rejection of his sexual advances has earned her an enemy in high places, and Krendler, who enjoys calling her a "cornpone country pussy" to her face, has been sticking the knife in her career ever since. Meanwhile, to salvage her falling stock, she is assigned to obtain testimony from a man who claims to have knowledge of the whereabouts of fugitive psychiatrist Lecter, who's been on the lam for a decade now. After years of living incognito and under false names following his escape from custody, the good doctor has actually landed a gig as curator of a museum in Florence, Italy. There, a disgraced police detective named Rinaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo Gianni) gradually comes to recognize the true identity of this "curator" and, instead of apprehending him, elects to delivery him into the hands of a benevolent and vindictive party in exchange for an exorbitant bounty. The benefactor is Mason Verger (an unrecognizable Gary Oldman), a multi-millionaire cattle baron for whom Lecter was responsible for his horrific disfigurement and paralysis years before. Verger is also the man who claims to now have new information on Lecter and who is depositioned by Starling. This is the premise of Hannibal, and if it sounds convoluted, it at least doesn't play that way onscreen. With masterful direction from Ridley Scott, Harris' novel, which was at one time deemed "unfilmable" by some, takes life as a cunning and vibrant film. The Florence segment brims with awe-inspiring vistas and antiquated architecture. The "flashback" scenes of Lecter's early exploits are cut and colored in a staccato fashion. The pacing of Hannibal is pleasantly effective, especially given the hot-to-cold nature of the book's pacing. Those who've read the book and wonder what liberties scripter Steve Zaillian (working from a previously-rejected David Mamet effort) takes, the following elements have been altered for the movie: the Jack Crawford character (played by Dennis Farina in Manhunter and Scott Glenn in Silence) has been jetisonned; ditto with Verger's long-suffering lesbian sister Margot, who originally plays a major role in his eventual undoing; Verger's disfigurement make-up design--described in the book as "all teeth and bone"--now resembles that of a burn victim with ineffective skin grafts, though it's still a wonderfully grisly effect; the entire insight into Lecter's memories of his younger sister's death--which might have been the impetus for his destructive ways--is left out; finally, the novel's ending (which many found implausible and insulting to Starling's character) has been amended significantly, although a key dinner scene is telegraphed in loving detail. There is no definable flight plan to successfully translating a book to the screen. Shooting the book as written isn't fool-proof. Putting all your eggs in the "cast a big-name celebrity to play a key character" basket has tanked many a project. Ditto with "re-write the shit out of it so that it's an adaptation in name only." Maybe the best course is the one Ridley Scott has taken with Hannibal, especially given the off-putting nature of the source material. That means alter the focus accordingly--for instance, the Florence segment is considerably elongated from the proportions it was afforded in the novel, and it is amended to allow Starling to cotton onto Pazzi's scheme and confront him via telephone. The fixation upon some Sardinian side characters who raise lethal boars--admittedly interesting in prose form--would have dragged down the film, and this element was trimmed. And while the conclusion, even in its changed version, might have been somewhat anticlimactic, there is a wondrously-clever epilogue which is actually a re-write of an airplane scene which originally occurred mid-way through the book. Should Thomas Harris ever decide to write another Lecter/Starling tale (and the novel's conclusion leaves a swinging door open for such), he'll likely write it on his own terms and make no concessions for establishing consistency with the movie version of Hannibal. By his own admission (at least as of 1999 when the Hannibal novel debuted), he has declined to watch any of the films made from his books. But given the decade-long gap between this latest Lecter opus and its immediate predecessor, it's entirely possible that we've seen the last of the Chianti and fava bean-loving villain. >>Back<< >>Features Main<<