Unlikely

Rating: 3/10 (6 January 2006)

this movie is just implausible... i know movies do not need to always reflect reality to be entertaining or good, but this movie rode the "realistic" trump card at the time of its release... i'm sorry if i don't believe the FBI would field an investigation in remotely the same fashion as the one in this movie... hopkins hams up his performance as lecter, and i cannot buy into him for one second...
i admit i have a faint bias against jodie foster but i still think this movie is irreparably damaged by the unlikeliness of the story... it's further hamstrung when you consider the BRILLIANT portrayal of lecter (who is not a very realistic character but wow! does cox do a good job bringing him to life) by brian cox in the older and superior manhunter... i think it's a mistake to give lecter the amount of emphasis he gets here, as he should not be the focus of this story...
if there is any redemption, it's the fine, almost secondary performance of ted levine... he acts in a manner i might expect from a serial killer, and is at least somewhat interesting... too bad he plays second fiddle to a pointless, distracting and inexplicable main story...
when compared this to similar serial killer thriller movies (ie. movies that ground themselves in fiction and twists) this film comes off rather badly to offerings like the bone collector, which is just a good old fashioned yarn... SOTL is at best boring, at worst silly...