The best of its genre and one of the best ever

Rating: Null/10 (9 October 2003)

This film is undoubtedly the best of its genre and one of the best ever made. It heads the league for dark, quite morbid, highly psychological and incredibly intense suspense-thrillers - has it created a new genre all to itself? Mesmerising performances, instantly-quotable screenplay, perfect (and I mean perfect, absolutely faultless) direction and a fabulous plot which in retrospect should be solvable with Lecter's drip-dropping of clues. It's only with hindsight that you see how ingeniously the story was worked.
I challenge anyone to name a more intense performance, with such a truly believable accent, by a leading actress (Kidman in The Hours is the only one). It's a given that the fundamental strength of the film is Foster's screen chemistry with Lecter. But never in the history of cinema has there been more captivating exchanges than between these two protagonists. This would simply not have been possible without Foster's AND Hopkins' Oscar-deserving, magical performances. And together with Demme's flawless direction (camera, screen-time etc), Hopkins has assumed the position of quintessential anti-hero, gaining a notoriety which will be difficult to challenge by future film-makers.
If there was one downside to this spectacle (like to all films), it was a scene of quite graphic gore, though it was certainly not gratuitous and if anything only added to the impact of the film.
Films to come in this genre will not better this one. Watch it and be amazed.