F-0275

Title:

Hannibal
The Silence of the Lambs 2 (USA, working title)

Category:

S

Produced:

2001

Country:

UK / USA

Released:

Film: Feb 2001 (USA)
DVD: Aug 2002 (2-DVD); Aug 2004; Jun 2007 (2-DVD); Jan 2007 (3-DVD)
VHS: Aug 2001; Feb 2002; Nov 2002
Soundtrack: Feb 2001 (CD)

Director:

Ridley Scott

Writer:

Thomas Harris (novel "Hannibal"); David Mamet (screenplay); Steven Zaillian (screenplay)

Actors:

Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal Lecter); Julianne Moore (Clarice Starling); Gary Oldman (Mason Verger); Ray Liotta (Paul Krendler); Frankie Faison (Nurse Barney - as Frankie R. Faison); Giancarlo Giannini (Insp. Renaldo Pazzi); Francesca Neri (Allegra Pazzi); Zeljko Ivanek (Dr. Cordell Doemling); Hazelle Goodman (Evelda Drumgo); David Andrews (FBI Agent Pearsall); Francis Guinan (FBI Asst. Director Noonan); James Opher (DEA Agent John Eldridge); Enrico Lo Verso (Gnocco); Ivano Marescotti (Carlo); Fabrizio Gifuni (Matteo)

Description:

Hannibal returns to America and attempts to make contact with disgraced Agent Starling and survive a vengeful victim's plan.

Part four in the Hannibal Lecter Quadrilogy. Having escaped the asylum in "Silence of the Lambs," Dr Lecter goes into hiding in Florence, Italy. Back in America, Mason Verger, an old victim of the doctor's, seeks revenge. Disfigured and confined to a life-support system, he plans to draw Lecter out of his hiding place, using the one thing he truly cares for: Clarice Starling. (James McManus)

After having successfully eluded the authorities for years, Hannibal peacefully lives in Italy in disguise as an art scholar. Trouble strikes again when he is discovered leaving a deserving few dead in the process. He returns back to America to once again make contact with now disgraced Agent Clarice Starling who is suffering the wrath of a malicious FBI official/rival as well as the media. Meanwhile, Hannibal must survive the advances by a disfigured and vengeful victim he first came in contact with years ago as a patient. He finds himself being tracked down not only by his wealthy victim and his henchmen but also by Agent Starling and the American authorities. (MonkeyKingMA)

Yes, he's back, and he's still hungry. Ten years after The Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, reprising his Oscar-winning role) is living the good life in Italy, studying art and sipping espresso. FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore, replacing Jodie Foster), on the other hand, hasn't had it so good--an outsider from the start, she's now a quiet, moody loner who doesn't play bureaucratic games and suffers for it. A botched drug raid results in her demotion--and a request from Lecter's only living victim, Mason Verger (Gary Oldman, uncredited), for a little Q and A. Little does Clarice realize that the hideously deformed Verger--who, upon suggestion from Dr. Lecter, peeled off his own face--is using her as bait to lure Dr. Lecter out of hiding, quite certain he'll capture the good doctor.
Taking the basic plot contraptions from Thomas Harris's baroque novel, Hannibal is so stylistically different from its predecessor that it forces you to take it on its own terms. Director Ridley Scott gives the film a sleek, almost European look that lets you know that, unlike the first film (which was about the quintessentially American Clarice), this movie is all Hannibal. Does it work? Yes--but only up to a point. Scott adeptly sets up an atmosphere of foreboding, but it's all buildup for anticlimax, as Verger's plot for abducting Hannibal (and feeding him to man-eating wild boars) doesn't really deliver the requisite visceral thrills, and the much-ballyhooed climatic dinner sequence between Clarice, Dr. Lecter, and a third unlucky guest wobbles between parody and horror. Hopkins and Moore are both first-rate, but the film contrives to keep them as far apart as possible, when what made Silence so amazing was their interaction. When they do connect it's quite thrilling, but it's unfortunately too little too late. (Mark Englehart, Amazon.com)

Anthony Hopkins is "perverse perfection" (Rolling Stone) in his return to the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the sophisticated killer who comes out of hiding to draw FBI agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore) into a high-stakes battle that will test her strength, cunning and loyalty.

Ten years after "The Silence of the Lambs," Hannibal Lecter returns to the table. He is played, once again, by Anthony Hopkins, who seems both more placid-as you would expect, for the doctor has been enjoying his freedom-and more particular in his cravings. Lecter is in Florence, where he is suspected by a local detective (Giancarlo Giannini, the best and most rumpled thing in the movie). Also on the trail is Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore), who is now an outcast within the F.B.I. Huntress and prey finally meet; indeed, we are given to understand that they can barely keep away from each other. What spoils the harmony is the vengeful presence of Mason Verger (played by an uncredited star), one of Lecter's less decorous victims. The screenwriters, David Mamet and Steven Zaillian, do a good job of sifting the dross from Thomas Harris's novel, and the director, Ridley Scott, gets elegant value from what remains. The locations are lush, the reworked ending could not be neater, and the special effects were apparently devised by an abattoir. There's just one problem, and it's insurmountable: this is not a scary movie. You may gawp or flinch, but your pulse, like that of Dr. Lecter himself, will stay disappointingly slow. (Anthony Lane, Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker)

Language:

English

TT:

131 min / 249 min (2-DVD) / 369 min (3-DVD)

J.S. Bach's Music:

Goldberg Variations BWV 988: Variation No. 25 & Aria
Glenn Gould (Piano)
Courtesy of Sony Classical/The Estate of Glenn Gould, by arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
(It is not known which of G. Gould's 3 recordings of the GV for Columbia/Sony is played: [K-2] (1955), [K-3] (1959), or [K-13] (1981)

The music during the opening credits is "Aria da Capo" from Goldberg Variations, a tape of which was playing while Lecter killed the two guards in Tennessee in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Format:

Film: Color (Technicolor), DTS / Dolby Digital / SDDS
DVD: See below.
VHS: See below.
Soundtrack: CD

Company:

Film: Dino De Laurentiis Company; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM); Scott Free Productions; Universal Pictures
DVD: MGM (Video & DVD); DTS
VHS: MGM Entertainment; MGM (Video & DVD)
Soundtrack: Decca

Comments:

2-DVD Set includes: The Hannibal Lecter Anthology (Hannibal / The Silence of the Lambs)
3-DVD Set includes: The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal)

Watch selections:

Buy movie at:

DVD: Amazon.com [AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC, Region 1] | Amazon.com [2-DVD, AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC, Region 1] | Amazon.com [PAL, Region 2] | Amazon.com [PAL, Region 2] | Amazon.com [PAL, Region 2] | Amazon.com [Anamorphic, Full Screen, NTSC, Region 2]
2-DVD: Amazon.com [Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Widescreen, NTSC, Region 1]
3-DVD: Amazon.com [Box set, Black & White, Color, Widescreen, NTSC, Region 1]
VHS: Amazon.com [Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC] | Amazon.com [PAL] | Amazon.com [PAL] | Amazon.com [Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC] | Amazon.com [Color, Dolby, NTSC] | Amazon.com [PAL, Spanish Subtitles] | Amazon.com [PAL]
Soundtrack: Amazon.com [CD]

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Source/Links: IMDB | Hannibal (Universal)
Contributor: Aryeh Oron (November 2007)