Classic Movie Review: 'Manhunter' Michael Mann's Underappreciated Masterpiece

Manhunter (1986)

Directed by Michael Mann

Written by Michael Mann

Starring William Peterson, Dennis Farina, Brian Cox, Kim Greist, Joan Allen

Release Date August 15th, 1986

Published July 16th, 2024

The visual simplicity of the opening images of Michael Mann's Manhunter are sublime. We open on a flashlight falling upon a flight of stairs. It's pitch black other than the flashlight. This could be a home invader or an investigator at this point. Toys are strewn across the stairs in the haphazard way that young children carelessly like to play. The visual signs of life in a typical American home are all present. As the person with the flashlight climbs the stairs, it's light falling on more signifiers of life, we arrive at the top of the stairs. The flashlight pans into what appears to a be a child's room, seemingly empty.

A few steps further and we arrive in a bedroom where we see our first evidence of people. A woman and a man are in bed and for a moment, it's not clear if they are alive or dead. The flashlight begins to hold steady on the woman who finally moves to signify that she's alive. The flashlight, now unmoving, continues to hold on the woman as it becomes clear that she's waking up. The fog of sleep still in her mind she finally begins to rise and just as she might be about to react to the sight of a stranger with a flashlight, we cut to the opening title of the film, Manhunter.

The clear indication is that this person with a flashlight is about to commit a horrific murder. That Michael Mann uses a signifier as simple as a flashlight to toy with us, to give us hope that perhaps we are arriving at an investigation and not an invasion is part of the building tension, the rising suspense. The way the flashlight falls on the woman in bed and holds on her becomes the unsettling implication of a terrible crime about to be committed. Mann's direction is simple, the visual storytelling is electrifying and yet it's still just a person with a flashlight and visual context. That's pure film language.

Over the years following Manhunter Michael Mann will come to be associated with a style that is more bombastic and far less subtle. No less skilled or polished, but somehow more modern and garish for having a bigger budget, bigger stars, and bigger ambition. I'm not the biggest fan of Michael Mann's blockbuster era. I don't love the kinetic, overwrought style of Heat, for instance. I genuinely believe his movie Blackhat is one of the worst attempts at a blockbusters of this relatively young century, but I still respect Michael Mann. I know that at any moment, Mann can still do what he did in Manhunter and blow my mind with his simple, straight-forward grasp of the language of film.

The elegance of Manhunter should not be underestimated. Manhunter is a gorgeous film and the pace that Mann establishes in the early, introductory scenes of William Peterson's Will Graham, Dennis Farina's Jack Crawford, and Kim Greist's Molly Graham, feeds into that elegance by working hand in hand with Cinematographer Dante Spinotti's beautifully warm visual palette. Specifically, the soft and gentle way that Spinotti uses the color blue is a stand out. Blue is often associated with icy cold. Spinotti renders blue warm and intimate. It's a subtle delineation that also involves the context of the story.

The film score, credited to Michael Rubini and Red, also underlines the elegance of the storytelling. Will Graham is accepting an offer from Jack Crawford to return to his life as a profiler of serial killers. Will's wife, Molly, is frightened, subtle dialogue has indicated that the last time Will Graham was in the business of profiling, it left scars, the kind you can't see but you know are there. Will's desire to reopen these old wounds causes Molly a great deal of anxiety. As they lounge in bed bathed in a gorgeous, warm blue that combines the beauty of the ocean, and the brightness of moonlight, we see the subtle line between sex and intimacy.

Where sex is sweaty and athletic, intimacy is soft and graceful. This is a scene of intimacy. Will is trying and failing to quell Molly's anxiety. Molly is putting on a brave attitude for Will but when the camera catches her face when he can't see it, she's clearly unnerved and concerned. This is underscored by a music score that slowly, elegantly, grows in tension and pace. It's a classic 80's synthesizer track, slow at first but growing in intensity as Mann's camera slowly pushes in on Molly's concerned face, the push in of the camera acting as a visual indication of the scene about to change. This matches the tension of the story which is about to shift into the action of Will's investigation.

This is less than 10 minutes into Manhunter and already we know all that we need to know. A serial killer is annihilating families. We've not been told this with clumsy dialogue, it's merely been implied in visuals, the light of a flashlight on a victim, a pair of photographs of a family, visually indicated as the woman from the previous scene, surrounded by the family implied in that opening scene. We know that Will Graham is haunted by his past via his reluctance to accept an assignment from his former boss, Jack Crawford. And we know that Will Graham is still going to accept this assignment despite the consternation of his wife, Molly, who is concerned about how his past might continue to haunt him as he moves into this new case.

The opening 10 minutes of Manhunter should be taught in film school. The opening minutes of Manhunter are so simple, yet ingenious. I can't criticize a frame of it, I can only gush over how brilliant it is. All of the elements of filmmaking, from editing, to acting, to cinematography, to scoring, are established. Motifs and themes are emerging. Mann has perfectly set the table. From here, Mann can satisfy what we expect or upend our expectations as needed to serve the story he's telling. If you think that this is what every director does, I can assure you, as someone who sees more movies than anyone, not every director is this efficient, effective, and artistic all at once.

Manhunter is the classic on the newest episode of the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast. Myself and my co-host Jeff Lassiter have paired Manhunter with the release of the new horror movie, Longlegs starring Maika Monroe as an FBI Agent on the trail of a serial killer, played by Nicolas Cage. These are two incredibly different movies that share a fascination with death, destruction, and good overcoming the darkest of depraved evil. Listen to the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts.

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