Red Dragon (2002 film)

This entry is about the 2002 film. For other entries with similar names, see Red dragon.

Red Dragon
Directed by	Brett Ratner
Written by	Screenplay: Ted Tally Novel: Thomas Harris
Produced by	Dino De Laurentiis
Starring	Edward Norton Anthony Hopkins Ralph Fiennes Harvey Keitel Emily Watson Philip Seymour Hoffman Mary-Louise Parker Anthony Heald Frankie Faison
Cinematography	Dante Spinotti
Edited by	Mark Helfrich
Music by	Danny Elfman
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	October 4, 2002
Running time	124 min.
Country	USA
Language	English

Red Dragon is a 2002 thriller film, based on the novel of the same name written by Thomas Harris featuring the brilliant psychiatrist and menacing serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Directed by Brett Ratner and written by Ted Tally (who also wrote the screenplay for The Silence of the Lambs), it starred Edward Norton as Graham and Anthony Hopkins as Lecter — a role he had, by then, played twice before in The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal.

Red Dragon is, in publishing chronology, the first story in the Lecter saga (Hannibal Rising, a later-published origin story, was released on February 9, 2007). Red Dragon's story takes place before the events in The Silence of the Lambs, and after Lecter's original capture and incarceration. While Lecter plays a central role, Red Dragon focuses more on the characters of Will Graham and the tortured serial killer, Francis Dolarhyde.

Plot

In his Baltimore townhouse, famous local psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter hosts a dinner party. The main subject of conversation over dinner is the disappearance of a local musician who was criticized for playing several false notes at a concert that Lecter attended. He then serves what the guests see as a delicious meal.

After dinner, Lecter is visited by Will Graham, a young gifted FBI agent, with whom he has been working on a psychological profile of a local serial killer. Body parts of the victims were removed by the killer and Graham is convinced that the killer is actually a cannibal. During the consultation and brainstorming session, Graham discovers evidence implicating Dr. Lecter in the murders, shortly before Lecter returns and attacks Graham, wounding and nearly killing him before Graham resists and subdues him.

Lecter is subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment in an institution for the criminally insane while Graham, severely traumatized by the experience, retires from the FBI.

Years later, another serial killer appears. Nicknamed the Tooth Fairy, he stalks and murders seemingly random families during sequential full moons. Hoping to speed things up and capture the killer before his next attack, Special Agent Jack Crawford seeks out Graham and pleads for his assistance. Graham, believing the death of another family to be an unbearable burden on his conscience, reluctantly agrees. Graham, coming to the realization that most of his previous success was achieved due to the insightful collaborations of Dr. Lecter, concludes that he must once again visit Lecter and seek his help in capturing the Tooth Fairy.

The Tooth Fairy is actually a disturbed man named Francis Dolarhyde who worships Lecter after learning of his crimes. Calling himself The Great Red Dragon (because of his obsession with the William Blake painting, "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun"), Dolarhyde is unable to control his violent and sexual urges, which turns him into a dangerous serial killer. These conditions were born from the systematic child abuse he suffered at the hands of his grandmother.

Graham continues to run into complications, the first being Freddy Lounds, a tabloid reporter whom Graham despises from the days following the conviction of Dr. Lecter and who now follows Graham relentlessly for leads on the Tooth Fairy story. Further complicating the investigation is the secret correspondence between Lecter and Dolarhyde, where Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address, endangering Graham's wife and child, who are evacuated to a remote farm which belongs to Crawford's brother.

Hoping to lure the Tooth Fairy into a trap, Graham gives Lounds an interview in which he gives dispariging details about what the FBI believe the killer to be: impotent and pathetic; whereas in fact they consider him highly dangerous and cunning. This provokes Dolarhyde but instead of Graham he kidnaps Lounds, tortures him, forces him to recant his allegations, and then sets him on fire and deposits him outside the offices of his newspaper.

At about the same time, Dolarhyde falls in love with a blind co-worker named Reba McClane. Dolarhyde's new-found love conflicts with his homicidal urges, which manifest themselves in his mind as 'The Great Red Dragon'. After his association with Reba, Dolarhyde attempts to stop the Dragon's "possession" of him. In order to stop killing, he believes that he must dominate the dragon by consuming the original painting. Dolarhyde goes to the Brooklyn Museum, beats a museum secretary unconscious, and eats the original Blake watercolor of The Red Dragon.

Graham eventually realizes that the killer knew the layout of his victims' houses from their home videos, which he only could have seen if he worked for a home video editing company, the company that transfers the home videos to video cassette. Dolarhyde's job gives him access to all home movies that pass through the company. When he sees Graham interviewing his boss, Dolarhyde realises that they are on to him and goes to see Reba one last time. He finds her talking to a co-worker, Ralph Mandy, a man whom she actually dislikes. Enraged, Dolorhyde kills Ralph Mandy, kidnaps McClane and, having taken her to his house, sets the place on fire. He intends to kill her and then himself, but finds himself unable to shoot her. After he apparently shoots himself, McClane escapes.

Graham is given Dolarhyde's scrapbook, saved from the wreckage of the house, which details the killer's tragic childhood and obsessions with murder. Despite himself, Graham feels pity for Dolarhyde, who he realizes was made a monster, not born one.

However, it turns out Dolarhyde did not shoot himself but left behind the body of Ralph Mandy in order to stage his own death. Dolarhyde pursues Graham to his home and attacks Graham's son. In order to save the boy, Graham subsequently uses the same obscenities that Dolarhyde's grandmother had used against him. This enrages Dolarhyde, who attacks Graham, allowing his son to escape to safety. Graham's wife, Molly, ends the horrific ordeal by shooting and killing Dolarhyde.

After recovering, Graham receives a letter from Lecter, which bids him well and hopes that he isn't too disfigured. Graham throws it into the sea. Dr. Frederick Chilton then informs Lecter that there is a young woman from the FBI waiting to speak with him. Lecter asks what her name is — presumably Clarice Starling.

Differences between versions

The story of Red Dragon has been filmed twice. The first film, released in 1986 under the title Manhunter, was written and directed by Michael Mann and focused on FBI Special Agent Will Graham, played by William Petersen. Lecter (renamed Lecktor) was played by Brian Cox. Manhunter is often recognized as a looser adaptation, leaving out Dolarhyde's backstory and having him die at Graham's hands during the climactic scene of the movie. Ratner's Red Dragon was more faithful to the novel in some respects. Lecter in Ratner's adaptation appears numerous times, and even the opening sequence was filmed specifically to show the audience how he got caught by Will Graham (in a version modified from the book). Red Dragon's chronology also does not match that of the novel.

The character Ralph Mandy corresponds to Ralph Dandridge in Manhunter, and a composite of Dandridge and Ralph Mandy in the novel. Also, the body of Ralph Mandy found in the burned down house in the novel is instead that of a gas station attendant with whom Dolarhyde had a previous confrontation.

Both films have a decidedly more optimistic ending than Harris's novel, where it is implied that Graham was left permanently disfigured by his encounter with Dolarhyde, was subsequently abandoned by his wife and now lives the life of a drunk in Florida.

At the end of the film verion of Red Dragon, the family is whole and sailing together on a boat. Will reads a letter from Lecter (transcribed verbatim from the book) and throws it into the ocean in contempt. The book ends with Graham in the hospital recovering from Dolarhyde's attack. Jack Crawford intercepts the letter before Graham ever learns of its existence. He reads it and destroys it without telling Will.

Response

Red Dragon was a box office success, earning $92,930,005 in the US . It received a mixed reaction from many critics. While some reviewers compared it negatively to Manhunter, others, such as Roger Ebert, were enthusiastic about the remake. The average Rotten Tomatoes rating was 'fresh' with a rating of 68 percent. .

File:Ferris Bueller house southeast view.JPG

Southeast view of the Long Beach, California home used in Red Dragon as the home where the police found a family slaughtered by the serial killer. Known as the Bueller family home, the house also appeared in the films Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Not Another Teen Movie.

Cast

• Anthony Hopkins - Hannibal Lecter
• Edward Norton - Will Graham
• Ralph Fiennes - Francis Dolarhyde
• Harvey Keitel - Jack Crawford
• Emily Watson - Reba McClane
• Philip Seymour Hoffman - Freddy Lounds
• Mary-Louise Parker - Molly Graham
• Anthony Heald - Frederick Chilton
• Ken Leung - Lloyd Bowman
• Frankie Faison - Barney Matthews
• Ellen Burstyn - Grandma Dolarhyde (voice)
• Frank Langella - Great Red Dragon (voice) (scenes deleted)

External links

• Red Dragon at IMDb
• The Hannibal Lecter Studiolo
• William Blake's The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun
• Red Dragon at Rotten Tomatoes