The title figure is a satanically whiskered FBI special investigator named Will Graham, who has a Lear Jet at his beck and call, helicopters awaiting him on landing, whole crews of forensics and computer wizards sitting by the telephone to follow up on any of his flashbulbs of inspiration -- everything, in short, an FBI man could want if, say, he were trying to solve the kidnapping of the Pope or the theft of the Statue of Liberty, rather than just (as here) track down your garden-variety psycho killer. (Thomas Harris, the author of the original novel, also wrote the one about the hijacking of the Goodyear Blimp by Arab terrorists at the Super Bowl.) We sit by and observe all this with something between bewilderment and stupefaction, and not just because of the level of technology involved, but because of the leaps-and-bounds method of storytelling that leaves us feeling as if we are lowly subordinates on the case who do not need or deserve to be fully briefed. We are better off when we are getting to know the killer: designated by the press as "The Tooth Fairy" (thanks to his set of vampire dentures) and designated by himself as "The Red Dragon" (from the portfolio of no one less than William Blake), but actually, in daily life, a painfully introverted fellow, with a harelip and a slight speech impediment, a bald dome and a fringe of gray hair, and the overall emotional makeup of a stunted fifteen-year-old. He works in a menial position in a film lab with an apparent hire-the-handicapped policy -- or in any case, one of their other hirelings is an attractive blind girl, up whose skirt the killer can attempt to look with impunity, but still without boldness. It is at or around this stage of things that the movie threatens to become genuinely good. But only threatens. It soon backs down. The killer's belated and retarded attempts at First Love make him, while they last, an interesting and even a touching character, but the necessity for a big finish dictates a last-minute reversion to his "Red Dragon" persona: a Terminator-like coolness and efficiency with a shotgun and a Halloween "Boogeyman" imperviousness to bullets. William L. Petersen, Tom Noonan; written and directed by Michael Mann. (1986) — Duncan Shepherd
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