Manhunter (1986)

Director: Michael Mann

Cast: William Petersen, Tom Noonan, Dennis Farina, Brian Cox

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. For years it was a curiosity: the Hannibal Lecter movie without Anthony Hopkins. However, I think I may have only come around to it after Hopkins last turn at the role, in Red Dragon (2002).

I had intended to wait to revisit this film until COVID got a little bit better and I could share it with a friend who is a confirmed Hannibal-phile (I think they prefer to be called Fannibals), but had never seen the film. COVID still rages, and I am right on the cusp of finally catching up on my to-watch DVDs... Something had to give. Sorry, pal... I’m totally fine to watch the movie again when we’re all on the other side of this. Damn virus...

Did I Like It: Many people love this film deeply, prizing it above The Silence of the Lambs (1991). There’s a lot to love about the movie, but I ultimately think that its strengths are tied to the source material. Even Brett Ratner couldn’t screw up this story. The loose adaptation in the recent TV series is some of the best television of the last ten years. This movie has the happiest, for lack of a better term, ending of all three adaptations, and that is just part of where it suffers relative to the other versions.

Here, though, I think the worst of Mann’s instincts got the better of him. The film is so aggressively fashionable and stylized that the film has no life outside of the 1980s. From the production design all through the music choices (“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” anyone?) the film eschews any of the gothic trappings of the source material and is content to be just another serial killer movie with a dopey title.

Tom Noonan’s performance as Francis Dollarhyde doesn’t bring out the twisted, horrible sympathy of the character, and is just another aloof ‘80s weirdo in a movie filled to the brim with them. William Petersen’s attempt at a Will Graham is simply too histrionic in his meditations to be believable. Brian Cox, however, does bring a pugnacious irritation to Lecter (Lecktor in this film, for reasons passing any understanding) that only hints to the horrors at his core. It’s the most reserved version of the character, and the only thing to recommend it over others, not to take anything away from Hopkins or Mikkelsen.

Heat (1995)

Director: Michael Mann

Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Tom Sizemore, Val Kilmer

Have I Seen it Before: No.

Did I Like It: I think for the most part, sure. It is perhaps the seminal crime movie of its age, having an indelible influence on the works of Christopher Nolan, especially The Dark Knight (2008) and Inception (2010)*. In a way that only filmmaker like Mann—and later Nolan—could, the film captures crime and law enforcement in a simultaneously epic and believable way. 

De Niro and Pacino have shown up to work in the film, and indeed it is the last example I can readily come up with where it didn’t seem like they were just showing up on set to pick up a check. Pacino might be particularly amped up to the peak of his late-stage-rage, but that can be fun to watch in the proper context. The rest of the cast, too, is at their best, with even bit parts being inhabited by actors I would watch do other things, all performing at the top of their game. Although it’s hard to watch Hank Azaria do much while I’ve been doing a Simpsons re-watch and not think of the character work he has done there.

But there is just something about the work of Mann that skips over the virtues and keeps everything from being as great as it might be. There’s a mannered, fashionable quality to his films. It keeps Manhunter (1986) from joining the pantheon of other great, Hannibal Lecter adaptations. It kept Public Enemies (2009) from being watchable beyond a sleep aid. Here, you have bank robbery sequences that are as good as anything ever committed to film. The tension never lets up, and never a second is wasted. Then, you have longer music interludes that seem soggy. Composer Elliot Goldenthal can do action music better than anyone, but his emotional beats just don’t work. See Batman Forever (1995) for other examples of Val Kilmer films from 1995 which suffered a similar fate. There are scenes of characters talking around but not to their significant others that feel like they were filmed on a cheap set instead of a real city. 

Then again, that may just be the way L.A. is. 

Those take me right out of the film, but you can’t fault the film for working when it does, because at those moments it is transcendent.

*Seriously, take away the dream-based science fantasy of that later film, and Inception practically is a remake of Heat. For that matter, there’s a reason Willima Fichtner plays the banker. I’ll let you decide which movie I’m talking about.