"To enter the mind of a killer she must challenge the mind of a madman."

The Silence of the Lambs (1991): 8/10

Poster (c) Orion Pictures

I think it's gotten to the point where most people don't really care about the Academy Awards anymore, because they're not for individual achievements, but for appreciating an actor or a film because it cost a lot of money. But back before those days, when the Oscars meant something, it was a huge honor to win the five major Academy Awards-picture, actor, actress, director, and screenplay. The Silence of the Lambs is the third, and most recent, one to do that. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins won acting awards, Jonathan Demme won the directing award, and Ted Tally won for best adapted screenplay. Was it deserving for all of those awards? For the most part, more or less.

Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins), a serial killer/cannibal who has the identity and the whereabouts of notorious serial killer Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), is being interviewed by rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling (Foster) for information on Bill. But Lecter's more cunning and demented than first glance, and has fun playing with the mind of Starling as she's interviewing him.

Since I don't really know what to say about this movie, I'll go my fail-safe way and go over each award it won and why it should have won for that reason. The screenplay, based off of the book by Thomas Harris, has a slow build-up (one that originally turned me off), but as soon as Lecter is introduced, it's paid off. The script takes us inside of the head of Lecter, making him one of the most interesting celluloid characters of the 1990s. The screenplay also doesn't really waste that much time with unimportant characters, although a little more on Jack Crawford would have been nice. But the screenplay is tight and holds together well, throughout the hit-or-miss directing career of Demme.

Demme won an Oscar for best directing. I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, many scenes in Lambs aren't boring, but not really that exciting or involving. He does have some good style (I love that night-vision scene), and does build up some good suspense as the movie comes to a close. The suspense is laid on thick at the end, and I suppose it makes up for the still entertaining but not thrilling rest of the movie. Demme does set up some mystery, too, as we follow Clarice's adventures. There are also some very disturbing scenes ("It rubs the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again!"), which fit in with the tone of most of the movie. Disturbing, yes, but actually impacting? Not really.

Both Foster and Hopkins won acting Oscars for leading roles. Foster's character, as I said before, began as being annoying to me, but soon became a person I could tolerate. But was she deserving of an Oscar? A nomination is even a stretch, mainly because of that awful accent of hers. Hopkins was great, but with total screentime being around 16 minutes, he was more of a supporting actor (although, I guess the awards were crooked then. They wanted to give an award to both Jack Palance for City Slickers and Hopkins, but they were both supporting roles). I think we got the gist of Hannibal in those 16 minutes, and Hopkins put in a memorable performance in that time.

Lastly, Lambs won best picture. Is it the best picture of 1991? I'm not sure, I haven't seen every film from 1991. But it's a damn good one.

Rated R for language, violence, and disturbing themes.

Review Date: August 17, 2004