Red Dragon (2002)

Red Dragon is a 2002 psychological horror film based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Thomas Harris. It was directed by Brett Ratner and written for the screen by Ted Tally. The film is a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Hannibal (2001). Anthony Hopkins stars as psychiatrist and serial killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, and Edward Norton as FBI agent Will Graham. The film also stars Ralph Fiennes, Harvey Keitel, Emily Watson, Mary-Louise Parker, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The novel was originally adapted into the film Manhunter (1986). The film was released on 4 October 2002.In 1980, Dr. Hannibal Lecter attends an orchestral performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Baltimore, and is irritated by a flute player who repeatedly misses his part. Later, he hosts a dinner party in his townhouse for the orchestra's board of directors. During conversation, the disappearance of the flute player is brought up. When one of the guests asks about the amuse-bouche Lecter made, he responds that if he tells her, she might not try it.

Lecter is visited by Will Graham, a gifted FBI agent who has the ability to empathize with psychopaths. Graham has been working with Lecter on a psychological profile of a serial killer nicknamed "The Chesapeake Ripper", who removed edible body parts from his victims, leading Graham to believe him to be a cannibal. During the consultation, Graham discovers evidence implicating Lecter as the Ripper. Lecter immediately attacks him with a knife, disarms him, and almost disembowels him, but Graham stabs Lecter in the abdomen with several arrows and then empties his backup handgun into him. Lecter survives and is sentenced to life imprisonment in an institution for the criminally insane. Graham is traumatized by the experience and retires from the FBI.

Several years later, another serial killer, nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy", appears, having stalked and killed two entire families during sequential full moons. Special Agent Jack Crawford seeks a reluctant Graham's assistance in developing the killer's psychological profile. With the death of another family seemingly weeks away on the next full moon, Graham agrees to help. After visiting the crime scenes and speaking with Crawford, Graham concludes that he must once again consult Lecter. Lecter taunts Graham, but agrees to "consult" with him.

The Tooth Fairy is Francis Dolarhyde, who kills at the behest of his alternate personality whom he calls "The Great Red Dragon". He is obsessed with the William Blake painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun, and has the painting tattooed on his back. He believes that each victim he "changes" brings him closer to "becoming" the Dragon. His psychopathology was born from the severe abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his sadistic grandmother.

Meanwhile, Freddy Lounds, a tabloid reporter, who hounded Graham after Lecter's capture, follows him again for leads on The Tooth Fairy. There is a secret correspondence between Lecter and Dolarhyde. Graham's wife and son, Molly and Josh, are endangered when Lecter gives The Tooth Fairy the agent's home address, forcing them to relocate to a farm owned by Crawford's brother. Hoping to lure out The Tooth Fairy, Graham gives Lounds an interview in which he disparages the killer as an impotent homosexual. This provokes Dolarhyde, who kidnaps Lounds and glues him to an antique wheelchair. Dolarhyde forces Lounds to recant his allegations, bites off his lips, and then sets him on fire outside his newspaper's offices.

Later, at his job in a St. Louis photo lab, Dolarhyde falls in love with Reba McClane, a blind co-worker. He takes her home, where they make love. However, his alternate personality demands that he kill her. Desperate to stop the Dragon's "possession" of him, Dolarhyde goes to the Brooklyn Museum, tears apart the original Blake painting, and eats it.

Meanwhile, Graham deduces that the killer knew the layout of his victim's houses from their home videos. He concludes that the killer works for the company that edits the home movies and transfers them to video. He starts searching the company processing plant and asks for the workers' personnel files, overseen by Dolarhyde as he returns from Brooklyn. Dolarhyde then leaves the plant unseen and goes to Reba's house.

Dolarhyde finds that she has spent the evening with a co-worker, Ralph Mandy, whom she actually dislikes. Enraged by this apparent betrayal, Dolarhyde kills Ralph, kidnaps Reba, takes her to his house, and then sets it on fire. Finding himself unable to shoot her, Dolarhyde apparently shoots himself. Reba is able to escape the house as the police arrive.

Dolarhyde, having used Ralph's corpse to stage his own death, turns up at Graham's home in Florida. He holds Josh hostage, threatening to kill him. To save his son, Graham slings insults at the boy, reminding Dolarhyde of his grandmother's abuse. Enraged, Dolarhyde attacks Graham. Both men are severely wounded in a shootout which ends only when Molly kills Dolarhyde. Graham receives a letter from Lecter which praises him for stopping The Tooth Fairy, bids him well, and says he hopes Graham isn’t "too ugly".

Sometime later, Lecter's jailer, Dr. Frederick Chilton, tells him that he has a visitor, a young woman from the FBI. Lecter asks her name.