At the bottom of this review is a link to a tune from the Manhunter sound track. It would be great if you clicked that link and started the tune playing, then came back to read the rest of the review.

Yeah. Thats the stuff. Really setting the scene, the film really is the 80s. Seriously, this is my new ‘gettin it on’ tune. Thats right, you are listening to a tune I am gonna seduce people with. You’ll be singing it for the rest of the day. If you watch the film this plays over the credits and the last part where the guy repeats listen to my heart beat repeats ad infinitum for about eight or nine years. Its amazing. So Manhunter. It is the first film where we meet Hannibal, later re-made as red Dragon, and follows Will Graham on his quest to track down a serial killer who seems have no motive. All the regular cops have come up with nothing using their regular cop skills, like, looking for clues, doing stake outs, wearing 80’s suits and using rudimentary fax machines. As an aside the fax machine scene here is nearly as exciting as the classic fax machine scene in Bullitt, mostly because the print out is in colour and has a resolution of about one dot per inch. What sets Will Graham aside from all those regular cops is his ability to get inside the minds of the crazy lunatics he is looking for – never mind that last time he did this, when he caught the infamous Hannibal Leckter (yes it has a K in this film, later removed because no one likes the letter K), he completely lost his mind and ended up in the crazy hospital. He has to stop these murders, what ever it takes. Cue a brilliant mixture of really off the wall police work, talking to himself to explain to the viewer what he is thinking (classic movie tool) and generally making everyone around him worried. The actual Hannibal character features far less in this movie than the later incarnations, and obviously we don’t have Hopkins doing his best craze bag impression, but Brian Cox (Professor Brian Cox) does a great job of laying the foundations for the creepy, super intelligent Lecktor we come to know and love. It is certainly not the best of the Hannibal films, but still, from the glowing green title card to the last heart beat this is an 80s gem, and you really cant beat the soundtrack. Is that tune still playing? Better hit repeat…heartbeat, heartbeat … can you feel my heartbeat …

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBWSocJMChA