The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Rating: R

Country: US

Running Time: 118 minutes

Director: Jonathan Demme

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Brooke Smith, etc.

The Silence of the Lambs is one of the most adequate, valuable and prestigious psychological horror movies ever. It won five Academy Awards including best picture. It was one of the most critically and financially successful, victorious and triumph landmark films to hit the screen. Tactical, strategic, cunning and audacious to any other competition in the overall pathetic and depressing run of 1991, it was sincerely and undoubtedly the best there was. Even after its theatrical plight was over, people continued to rave and discuss the importance, relevance and advantage it possessed over other fine works of the decade. It was truly one of the most unforgettable, menacing, dreadful and delirium evoking schizophrenic nightmares and perspectives and journeys into madness and hysteria since Jacob's Ladder and The Shining. It is unquestionably a subconsciously driving heterogeneous of emotion, aggression, wonder and most frequently: fear. It doesn't hold up for a second. To describe this fully would be severely difficult. to start, it led up to the evergrowing popularity and cultural status of one of the most frightening, delusional, demented and deranged yet rational, acute and manipulative serial killers ever caught on camera. Hannibal Lecter. He is also followed up and disseminated by a groundbreaking and eerie exhibition by Anthony Hopkins, who handles his given role with calmness. From the opening minutes where you first see him in his confined cell in his reflection, you suddenly start to fringe in a frenzy. He is certainly groundbreaking, deserving of all of his recognition and fame. The renowned escape scene especially demonstrates his capabilities, where in its climax you are left with a series of shocks and chills rolling and jumping up your spine immediately after one episode. Jodie Foster is also great, although a step down from Hopkins. She manages to deliver through complications and problems. Where she truly rises is in her conversations and speeches with Lecter himself. The two together are electrifying, the ultimate combo on-screen. They say all of their lines professionally, as if they didn't need a script and spoke only from the deepest regions of their heart. The cinematography is glorious, mesmerizing, hypnotic and simply astounding, capturing the distinctness of each environment and place with much compassion and affection, each one with it's own share of attractiveness. With the soaken layers of enigma and conundrums conveyed into its plotline, it's essentially a mystery that quickly transfers into a full-fledged thriller in the second quarter, then a horror in the last section. It really is remarkable that this was even made. However, while this is heartbreaking too state and claim, it carries a cliche anti-ending and it carries many unstrung holes at times. I congratulate and thank Jonathan Demme for bringing us something this special and new into the world. It has the changed the face of cinematic evolution for us all, and even today scares us to the bone.

Pros: Too many to say

Cons: Holes and bad ending

Recommended? Yes

9 out of 10