Writer-director Michael Mann wrote a superior script and assembled an incredible cast for MANHUNTER making one of the most underrated outstanding thrillers of the 1980s. Mann knows how to construct an intense movie and, as in his earlier THIEF, presents the viewer with a fascinating amount of procedural detail — both law-enforcement and criminal. Petersen is superb as the obsessive investigator who risks madness each time he takes on a case, and Tom Noonan is absolutely chilling as the psycho killer. Cox is also frightening as the complex Lektor, a character who would be played by Anthony Hopkins in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), HANNIBAL (2001) and RED DRAGON (2002), where the doctor's name is spelled "Lecter," as it is in the novels. Though all involved insisted RED DRAGON was a "reimagining" of the original novel, rather than a new version of MANHUNTER, it's a strikingly similar, if rather pedestrian, film. The director's cut of MANHUNTER, released on DVD, restored some ten minutes of footage trimmed from the original theatrical version.
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