Fellman's Movie Reviews

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Movie number two on our serial killer movie review double feature is the prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon. It brings back Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, but this time he’s playing his mind games with Agent Will Graham, played by Edward Norton. Norton does a good job in this movie. This comes out right around the time that Fight Club came out, so Norton was doing pretty good for himself back then. 

Harvey Keitel is Ed Norton’s partner in this film. Keitel plays a good cop. Your grizzled, old, “I’m too old for this shit” kind of character. I’m glad they didn’t try to make him into some sort of action star, because I don’t think Harvey Keitel is an action sort of actor.  

Ralph Fiennes is the serial killer in this movie, and he does it well. His facial expressions the whole time are just perfect. His eyes are looking right through the camera. He’s just really focused on who he’s planning on killing. He plays a really good serial killer. And the tattoo work is impressive. I mean, I know it’s not a real tattoo, but still, somebody had to put it on there, right? 

Phillip Seymour Hoffman gets killed in an especially brutal scene. Hoffman plays a real douchebag reporter throughout the movie that gets his comeuppance somewhere near the middle. There’s somebody that can play a real myriad of characters. Phillip Seymour Hoffman can play anything from children’s characters to people in psychological thrillers. He’s a genuinely talented actor. 

Overall, I think I liked this movie more than I did the original Silence of the Lambs. This seemed more enthralling and action packed than the first one. Not to mention, it didn’t have the constant close ups that the first movie had. For some reason, the director of the first movie had a close-up of each character in every scene, like, every other shot. It was the weirdest directorial decision.