Positive and rather brief

Rating: 9/10 (24 February 1999)

Silence of the Lambs is one of the best American films I have seen in ages. It settles comfortably into the genre of "psychological horror" along with such modern classics as Seven and...The Game I suppose. It is true that the afformentioned genre has not been overly exploited, and in view of a collection of films described as having "a questionable degree of merit" that is probably a good thing.
Jodie Foster is excellent as a trainee FBI agent, but her performance is a little overshadowed by that of Sir Anthony Hopkins in the role of Dr Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lector. A lot has been said about Hopkins' portrayal of the cannibalistic serial killer, and as I'm limited for space all that I can say is that after seeing the movie, Lector seems a more believable character than Hopkins himself (that's a compliment by the way).
In short, an extremely effective movie, and one that has for many embodied the cinema of the '90s.