Red Dragon (2002 film)

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This entry is about the 2002 film. For other entries with similar names, see Red dragon.
Red Dragon
Directed byBrett Ratner
Written byThomas Harris (novel)
Ted Tally (screenplay)
Produced byDino De Laurentiis
StarringEdward Norton
Anthony Hopkins
Ralph Fiennes
Harvey Keitel
Emily Watson
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Mary-Louise Parker
CinematographyDante Spinotti
Edited byMark Helfrich
Music byDanny Elfman
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release dates
October 4, 2002
Running time
124 min.
CountryUSA USA
LanguageEnglish

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.

Cast

Synopsis

In his Baltimore townhouse, after hosting a dinner party, famous local psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter is approached by Will Graham, a young gifted FBI agent tracking a local serial killer whose victims have all been cannibalised. 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 traumatised by the experience, retires from the FBI.

Years later, another serial killer, nicknamed the Tooth Fairy, terrorizes the city, stalking and murdering seemingly random families during sequential full moons. Displeased with his current team of inexperienced agents, 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, 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 a madman who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, and a splitting of egos. These conditions were born from the systematic child abuse he suffered at the hands of his grandmother. (For more psychoanalysis of Graham and Dolarhyde, see their individual pages.)

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 correspondence between Lecter and Dolarhyde, where Lecter provides Dolarhyde with Graham's home address, endangering Graham's wife and child. Fortunately, both complications are solved: the first because Dolarhyde kills Lounds after the latter writes unfavorably about him in the newspapers; the second because Graham manages to evacuate his family from their house before any harm can come to them.

In the meantime, Dolarhyde falls in love with a blind co-worker named Reba McClane. Dolarhyde's newfound 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 watercolour 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. Sensing that he is about to be caught, Dolarhyde goes to see Reba one last time, but he finds her talking to a co-worker, Ralph Mandy. 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 instead 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 his son, Graham subsequently uses the same terms that Dolarhyde's grandmother had used against him, on his own son. 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. The film ends with Dr. Frederick Chilton informing Lecter that there is a young woman from the FBI waiting to speak with him; presumably beginning The Silence of the Lambs (supposedly set 8 years after the capture of Lecter).

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 climatic 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's.

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 had a previous confrontation.

Response

Red Dragon was a box office success, earning $92,930,005 in the US [1]. 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, much lower than Manhunter's 94%, which also had 100 percent by its Cream of the Crop, comparing to Red Dragon's very low Cream of the Crop rating. However, there are only 24 Manhunter reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes as opposed to 177 Red Dragon reviews. [2].

Errors

Trivia

  • In this film, Frankie Faison reprises his role as Barney, the orderly from The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Faison is the only person to appear in all of the first four Hannibal Lecter films, having played Lt. Fisk in Manhunter.
  • Anthony Heald, who reprised his role as Dr. Frederick Chilton, wore a hair piece to match the hair style he wore in The Silence of the Lambs because at the time of shooting he sported a crew cut while in the TV show Boston Public.
  • Whereas MGM and Universal split distribution of Hannibal, MGM was a silent partner in this film, with Universal releasing the film in America and worldwide. On the DVD commentary track Ratner says that they were forced to go to MGM to obtain an establishing shot of the hospital where Lecter is incarcerated since it had been demolished since the production of The Silence of the Lambs and MGM insisted on co-distribution in return.
  • Ratner wanted to digitally "de-age" Hopkins for this film but ultimately didn't do it. Ratner did make use of this technique in X-Men: The Last Stand.
  • The Red Dragon tattoo on Dolarhyde's back was designed by Tom Berg. He also designed the elaborate tattoo for the TV series Prison Break.
  • The voice over of Dolarhyde's grandmother threatening to cut off his penis is extremely close to a threat made by Norman Bates's mother in Psycho IV: The Beginning.
  • Frank Langella recorded a voice track as the Dragon for one scene; though the scene was later cut, it is shown on the DVD.
  • Michael Bay was offered chance to direct the film but he turned it down.

References

  1. ^ Red Dragon - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes
  2. ^ Red Dragon - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes
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