Manhunter Movie Review

It is in your nature to do one thing correctly: listen to this show! Before Anthony Hopkins was savoring fava beans and a nice Chianti, Hannibal Lecter first appeared on the big screen as “Hannibal Lector,” played by Brian Cox in Manhunter, the stylish 1986 thriller from Miami Vice creator Michael Mann. When a brutal serial killer known as the “Tooth Fairy” begins murdering entire families, FBI profiler Will Graham is pulled out of retirement to track him down. To understand the mind of the killer, Graham turns to the one man who knows that darkness best—the imprisoned murderer he once captured, Hannibal the Cannibal. Though the story would later be retold in The Silence of the Lambs era with Red Dragon, Manhunter initially failed at the box office before gaining a devoted following among Lecter fans. But does Mann’s neon-soaked thriller stand alongside the more famous films that followed? Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob kick off Now Playing Podcast’s Hannibal Lecter retrospective with their review of Manhunter.