After a particularly grueling case hunting a serial killer known as the Minnesota Shrike, Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) threatens to walk away. Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne), the head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, desperately needs Will on his team to break the tough cases, so he enlists Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), to ensure Will's mental well-being. Unbeknownst to Will, Hannibal also has a particular insight into these horrible crimes and the psychopaths who commit them. As Will hunts down brutal killers, he is unknowingly sitting across from the most gifted killer of them all.
Welcome to the grisly world of Hannibal Lector but should we be more afraid of him or the crimonologist Will Graham who Lecter takes a shine to in this stunning new spin on the books written by Thomas Harris. Yes we've all see The Silence of The Lambs, Manhunter, Red Dragon and Hannibal but have we ever seen the brilliant mind before he was locked up in a glass cage?
Not really, here in Hannibal Season One Lecter is free to work his sinister magic and brain eating ways under the radar. Working along side Agent Jack Crawford (Lawrence Fishburne) and Crime Scene specialist Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), Lecter pulls the strings of the men who hunt the fiendishly devious killers of the world... killers exactly like him.
Will Graham is the man that walks a fine line, a line that could break at any moment and when Will is faced with taking the life of another man, Lecter is called in to help him through the process and get him back in to the field. What Lecter discovers is a mind ripe for manipulation, a mind as superior as his own but broken. You can only see so much before it starts to shape the way you think, haunt your dreams...
It's highly staylised and extremely clever in its execution as all the characters have a part to play in Will's fleeting sanity. It's a tale that shapes a season and makes each episode a treat to watch as Will deals with death and Lecter moves his chess pieces in to place in order to trap the men he works with.
It's intricate, it's detailed and it's character story telling at its best. Thank goodness Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen are on hand to bring this series to life. Mads is meticulously sedate, walking that thin line between friend and puppet master, this incarnation of Hannibal is a slow burning master of human emotion, he's also a devil with a blade!
Hugh Dancy as Will is a tortured soul, pushed forward in order to save lives from the clutches of serial killers, each and every time he puts himselfs in the shoes of a killer at a crime scene, he loses himself to the things he witnesses and as an audience we get to see it all as well.
Hannibal as you might expect does have gore but the show doesn't throw it at the audience all in one go, as viewers we're allowed to become accustomed to Will Graham's world and the horrors he encounters. We're allowed to witness his fragility before being thrown head first into some truly horrific scenes of flayed skin and gore.
It's a clever device which gets audiences hooked before sharing the true world of Will and Hannibal, those who are turned off by gore must continue on if they want to see the thrilling conclusion to season one.
Just how far can a show like Hannibal go though, we know where the future lies... will Agent Starling live again in a later season of Hannibal? Only time will tell but for now, this set is worth every penny, especially as Studiocanal has given this one the HD treatment it deserves on blu-ray, it looks and sounds stunning!