Metro Pulse/Movie Guru/Hannibal

Movie Guru Rating:
Unconscious (1 out of 5)

Comment
on this review

Not even a nice Chianti could save Hannibal

by Zak Weisfeld

Perhaps it would be best to blame the English. How else does one explain the startling, and unpleasant, coincidence of two movies, Snatch and Hannibal (both directed by Englishmen), in which a major plot point revolves around wealthy villains determined to have other people of dubious moral fiber fed to ravenous pigs? When did death by pig ingestion enter the global cinematic zeitgeist as the ultimate in horrible, degrading ends? How did we go so quickly from Babe to Hannibal? Or better yet, why?

These are questions beyond the scope of a simple movie review, but I feel it's important to offer them to scholars as a window into this peculiar moment in our culture. From my own point of view the appearance of the pigs in Hannibal was as welcome as the first 70 degree day after a long, cold winter. The arrival on screen of the bristly boars, ramming their brutal snouts into the rickety wooden gate that separated them from the movie's main characters, meant that I was nearing the end of the pompous and degrading spectacle that is Hannibal.

My only hope, as their cloven hooves pawed the steaming earth, was that they would somehow be allowed to devour, not just all of Hannibal's characters, but the studio executives, producers, director, writers and crew members—everyone involved with the movie. During a particularly giddy moment I even prayed that the pigs drive their gleaming, spittle-coated tusks through the screen itself and gorge themselves upon the audience before working their way back to the projection room and consuming every last frame of celluloid upon which lay Hannibal. At the time, it would have seemed like mercy.

Alas, the pigs only managed to consume one of the main characters, and it wasn't the world's most pretentious serial killer. Instead, their porcine bellies were filled with the somewhat less than satisfying meat of Hannibal's nemesis, Mason Verger—a former child molester, Hannibal-victim and creepy multimillionaire bent on revenge. For those concerned that I have just ruined Hannibal's tightly crafted and suspenseful plot let me assure you that that is impossible. There is more suspense in a single professional wrestling match than in all of Hannibal; not to mention more drama, pathos, wit and moral complexity. The only category in which Hannibal is obviously superior to, say, The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, is in its lighting.

And, to be fair, the lighting in Hannibal is superb. Unlike Jonathan Demme, who directed Hannibal's Oscar-winning predecessor, Silence of the Lambs, in terse strokes and muted colors, Ridley Scott has come at Hannibal like the unholy love child of Remains of the Day and Gladiator. Every scene is crafted with a kind of obsessive brilliance—the piazzas and streets of Florence shimmer in the fog or glow in the sun. Lake houses, towering mansions, even earthen-floored pig dining areas are illuminated like Rembrandts.

But it's not only the locations that are given such loving treatment. Scott fills virtually every frame with such cultured lushness that Hannibal begins to feel less like a thriller and more like a very high-end lifestyles piece for the jetsetting cannibal. Even Hannibal's absurd hat (he's often costumed like a man on his way to a Truman Capote look-alike contest) and billowing coat are supposed to impress upon us the seriousness of his character and worldly concerns. It doesn't work.

Despite the best efforts of an incredibly talented group, Hannibal—while eminently viewable—is never actually watchable. In fact I can't remember ever before having seen so many gifted people working so hard to create so very little. Pity especially poor Julianne Moore. While Jodie Foster's Agent Starling got to spar with Lecter and capture another serial killer, Moore's Starling is given nothing to do but clench her jaw while being denigrated by powerful men.

As for Hopkins, his Lecter is still a potent physical presence, but the performance itself, all clipped vowels and courtly manners, is not so much frightening as annoying. And since he and Clarice share about five minutes of screen time—and that at the very end of the film—there's little opportunity to deepen, or even revive, what might be called their relationship. In its stead we are given trite telephone speeches on Starling's unwavering moral code and hare-brained, suspenseless chase scenes through crowded malls.

There are moments, few and far between, when Hannibal almost seems to be on to something—to have something important to say. When Lecter and Verger confront each other, surrounded by the splendor of their wealth, the film feels on the edge of forming some unspeakable link between Martha Stewart Living and serial killing. But in the end, there's nothing.

The problem, as I'm sure Hannibal would have been happy to lecture ad nauseam, is that one can't buy class. Despite its operas and its airs, Hannibal is nothing more, and maybe even less, than a cheap slasher film without even much slashing. Ultimately, the shocking thing isn't Hannibal sautéing a chunk of brain (oh, did you see the delicately hammered copper pan and Williams-Sonoma table side grill on which he cooked it?) from a still-living man, it's that anyone thought it was worthy of this kind of treatment.