In Silence, and later Hannibal, the man was elevated from his small role in the original novel, eventually reaching the height of co-protagonist in Hannibal. Ted Levine gave a wonderfully creepy, yet small and undeveloped, performance as Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in Silence; Gary Oldman's Mason' Verger in Hannibal was more memorable for sardonic lines like "Nobody beats the Riz" than any sort of malice.

But in Red Dragon, the title character is not the delightful cannibal, or the woman who relates with him, but the killer we don't know. Ralph Fiennes utterly steals the show as Francis Dollarhyde, who bridles at the title the press gives him. (Gumb was "Buffalo Bill" because he "skinned his humps"; Dollarhyde was the Tooth Fairy because of the bites he inflicted on his victims.) Fiennes simultaniously goes for broke in threatening the landmark performance of the serial killer genre, Norman Bates's career-ending performance in Psycho and manages to imbue even such lines as "Open your eyes, or I will staple your eyelids to your forehead" with a chilling menace.

What holds this all together is a story, pulled from Harris's first novel featuring Lector, that is probably the best out of the three. Silence will long be remembered as the first and the finest film (while Micheal Mann fans everywhere kick puppies in desperation); but Dragon has the most developed plotting and characters of them.

All of which was essentially handed to director Brett Rattner on a platter. It's hard to judge him by this film - he could have sat in his trailer all day, for all we know. The film might have been better if he had done so, for all we know. All we do know is that he could have righteously screwed this up and he didn't. I suppose that'll do, for now.

Red Dragon passes the acid test - it will not disappoint most fans of Silence of the Lambs, those who enjoyed Hannibal or those who did not. It will keep you in suspense for much of its running time. The film is truly a triumph of the hams.

For two other views of the film, see here and here.