Review of Manhunter

Manhunter is the original 1986 old school ghetto adaptation of Harris' novel "Red Dragon". This was before Silence of the Lambs and long before the Edward Norton/Anthony Hopkins remake. The screenplay was done by an underrated Michael Mann and the cast was surprisingly star studded. Will Graham was played by Will Peterson, who we all know and love as GRISSOM! from CSI! This role as a Forensic Psychologist gave him excellent credentials and paved the way for his more prominent role as Grissom. In the film, Grissom was backed up by the always comical, yet cynical Dennis Farina. Better yet, much to my surprise, the role of Dr. Hannibal Lector was played by, none other than, Brian Cox, who we all know as the crazy Cpt. O'Hagen from Super Troopers and the eerie Mr. Morgan from the Ring. He was a great combination of silly and insane, but obviously no where near Hopkins' status. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was greatly missed as the hilariously apathetic photographer, but I have to admit, the new insane killer guy was waaaay more insane and killerish than when Fiennes played the part in 2002.

The editing on the gun fight scenes were shotty at best (huuuuge pun intended), and the soundtrack was like a drugged up Scarface score (that's extremely redundant if you've seen the movie). Other than that, it did give me chills, and i was impressed in the end. but i must say, it was no Village ;)... but that is a whole other post.

Anyways, the underlying theme of the movie was clearly:

If you are clinically blind, for the love of god, do not have wild sex with a criminally insane mastermind, then cheat on him

In the end, I am pleased to award it a 6/10 on the calorimeter