“This is an entirely imaginary story about the writer Dashiell Hammett, who… in the words of one of his most gifted contemporaries… helped get murder out of the vicar’s rose garden and back to the people who are really good at it. The detective story has not been the same since.” So begins Hammett, the atmospheric and exciting tale of a young mystery writer who really lives the hard-boiled life he writes about — and learns to dig beneath the surface of his characters to reveal their deeper, darker motivations.

Director ‘Nicholas Ray’ is eager to complete a final film before his imminent death from cancer. Wim Wenders is working on his own film Hammett (1983) in Hollywood, but flies to New York to help Ray realize his final wish. Ray’s original intent is to make a fiction film about a dying painter who sails to China to find a cure for his disease. He and Wenders discuss this idea, but it is obviously unrealistic given Ray’s state of health.

The three Hammett brothers, Cain, Harry and Dale are caught in a conflict that escalates rapidly and the old farmers facing against new farmers who have settled in the green grasslands.

Cancer-terminal tycoon Peter Murdoch’s secret Wexel Hall Pharmaceuticals lab has developed a blood orchid extract cure. To examine why it works optimally in snakes, they also bread a super-anaconda strain. But the original pair escapes, leaving a bloody trail of corpses. Murdoch runs, instructing his staff to clean up. They keep failing and being eaten like unsuspecting locals, some alive, even after enlisting ruthless big game hunter Hammett. The fast-growing pregnant monster sheds its skin, thus disabling the only tracking device.