Shadow of the Vampire. Brad Pitt joins mostly British cast in crazily convoluted, funny but mean-spirited gangster spoof about hot diamond and crooks, promoters, hoodlums who want it. Not for under-16s. Michael Douglas as U.S. drug czar whose daughter's an addict, in smart, fast dissection of drug war. Some Spanish with subtitles.
Characters meet their ends via hanging, disemboweling and throat-slitting.
An infant is endangered in a thundering shootout. There are disturbing photographs of Lecter's victims, a scene with a wild boar chomping down on a human, a character with a grotesquely disfigured face, strong sexual innuendo, crude sexual language and profanity. Parents may find it unsettling that in some ways, Lecter becomes an urbane hero, a sort of avenging angel, protecting his nemesis, the upright Starling. It makes for good, but morally ambiguous drama. A masked killer goes after a specific group of friends, everyone is a suspect, and the resolution is, supposedly, a surprise.