Silence of the Lambs is a bone chilling suspense thriller. It?s a brilliantly directed, riveting and frightening psychological movie.
Academy Award winning actress Jodie Foster plays special agent Clarice Starling, an intelligent and attractive trainee FBI officer who works in a male dominated workplace. Starling has been assigned to find a serial killer known as ?Buffalo Bill?, a demented transvestite who is so obsessed with becoming a woman that he goes about making an outfit out of human skin. His next victim happens to be Catherine Martin, a US Senators daughter. Buffalo Bill starves his victims, later shoots and skins them. He dumps the bodies in different rivers leaving no evidence behind.
In one horrifying scene Starling is examining a victims body, her first encounter with Buffalo Bill?s work. She narrates what she sees into a microphone- a bug cocoon shoved inside the victim?s throat, a trademark signature of Buffalo Bill, and two triangular patches of skin missing from her back.
Jack Crawford, head of FBI Behavioral Science Unit, instructs Starling to meet Dr. Hannibal Lecter- ?Hannibal the Cannibal?, as he is notoriously known, to help her reveal the identity of the serial killer.
Academy Award winning actor Anthony Hopkins portrays Dr. Lecter, a cannibalistic serial killer who was a criminal psychiatrist at one time before he was captured. He is confined in a prison for the criminally insane when Starling approaches him. Lecter agrees, provided that Clarice reveals personal information about herself every time he offers her clues regarding Buffalo Bill. Starling?s troubled childhood memories haunts her as her mother died at childbirth and her father, a policeman, was killed in duty when she was only ten years old. A mental cat and mouse game ensues between Hannibal and Clarice as she tries to gain insights from him to understand the motives of Buffalo Bill.
?I know he’s a monster. Beyond that, nobody can say for sure. Maybe you’ll find out?, says Agent Crawford when questioned by Starling on what Dr. Lecter is. One will remember the movie for Anthony Hopkins?s brilliant and unnerving portrayal of Lecter, which completely overshadows the tension created by Buffalo Bill. Watch this movie for Hopkins performance and the chemistry between Lecter and Starling. The movie leaves one with spine chilling moments such as Clarice walking down the dark passage to meet Dr. Lecter for the first time and Hannibal breaking out of prison.
This movie remains faithful to Thomas Harris?s original novel of the same name- Silence of the Lambs. The movie won the main categories in Academy Awards including Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Actress (Jodi Foster), Best Director, Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
It?s worth a watch! And as Hannibal Lecter would end it:
?I do wish we could chat longer, but I?m having an old friend for dinner. Bye!?