"Red Dragon" is a film which predates the action of "Silence of the Lambs". It sees Anthony Hopkins reprise his role as Hannibal for the third time. Ralph Fiennes also stars.

(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

Watch the whole programme - 11 October 2002

MARK LAWSON:
Germaine, it's being billed as the third Lecter film. It's also the fourth, because Michael Mann made the book as Manhunter originally. Do we need another version of it?

GERMAINE GREER:
I don't think it's a question of need. I think people just want to see more of Hannibal Lecter, because it is such an amazing piece of style.

It's completely gratuitous, in a way. It's a totally Hammy performance. He has become a prima donna, working every one of those mannerisms. It's become almost abstraction.

What I found interesting, and I was dreading seeing this film, is that it has actually been written in a highly literate and complex kind of way.

So that if you do The Times crossword you will quite like following the film, because it gives you slightly erudite clues. It mixes up and introduces auguries of innocence for no reason at all.

One of the interesting things about it is that only Englishmen can do this perverted style which the Americans adore.

Hopkins is shamefully self-indulgent, by one criterion, but by another, it is an extraordinary physical performance.

Once he gets into that straitjacket of being Hannibal Lecter, everything he does is Lecterish. Whether he is just lifting is elbow or one finger.

You realise that what people want more of is like, "Do it again, daddy. Do your impersonation of the serial killer again." It's childish and beguiling.

MARK LAWSON:
Tony Blair is going to have to raise this next time he goes to Camp David, the way in which the psychopaths are always played by English actors. It's getting very worrying. Nitin?

NITIN SAWHNEY:
To be honest, for this particular film, I preferred Brian Cox's original Lecter in Manhunter, because he was more believable.

Originally, in the book, he was much more of a minor character. In this film, it just feels like he has taken over the whole thing.

It also becomes quite convoluted in terms of the plot as a result. For instance, you have all this incredible cast. I thought Philip Seymour Hoffmann was very good in his role.

But I just feel that because they tried to make the emphasis Hannibal Lecter, it kind of meant that the plot suffered as a result. I didn't feel it sustained any kind of real tension for me.

MARK LAWSON:
People have made the point, Rosie, that it's odd to have such joy in seeing a villain, an evil character supposedly. Fantastically camp now, though, isn't it?

ROSIE BOYCOTT:
Very camp, and also very weird. Hopkins is supposed to be 20 years younger than he was in Hannibal, and he is 20 years older.

The Red Dragon book is by far the best of the Hannibal series. As a book and plot, it's way superior.

You have a strange sense that you have been there before, and there is Hannibal in the cell helping you solve the problem about where to find the serial killer.

They need this for the Beltway sniper at the moment, and you wonder are they consulting a sniper in a prison somewhere?

I do think this is the best plot and the best story. You have been saying about we put all these Brits into the villain role. I thought the only thing that let it down was Ralph Fiennes.

In the clip we saw, when you see this absurd body builder's back, you think you are in a Charles Atlas competition with the tattoo.

I didn't find him that scary, whereas the character in the original Manhunter is really terrifying. Although that whole part is saved by Emily Watson, who was brilliant as the blind girl and you feel frightened for her when she is in his power.

MARK LAWSON:
I just wonder, because Rosie mentioned the Washington sniper, there's something very odd about guns in this film.

The message quite clearly is, "Arm yourself, arm your wife, and you will be OK." That seemed to me a rather disturbingly American message in this?

GERMAINE GREER:
There were an awful lot of guns in it, actually. They kept just appearing. A double-barrelled shotgun appeared from nowhere and is pointed into Ralph Fiennes' mouth.

I'm kind of mixed about Ralph Fiennes. He has such a beautiful voice and does such extraordinary things with it here.

ROSIE BOYCOTT:
Did you find him frightening, though?

GERMAINE GREER:
Not really. I felt sorry for him. I was a bit of an Emily really.

MARK LAWSON:
The film itself is frightening I thought. Could you watch another one though?

ROSIE BOYCOTT:
No, I really don't think I could.

MARK LAWSON:
I call for the Silence of the Lecter.