It tries to build a crawling sense of dread and menace, but...

Rating: 6/10 (27 March 2002)

Jonathan Demme's "The Silence Of the Lambs" is a grisly spook show, and one without any sympathy for its victims (or for the audience, who get a good hammering on the head). Yes, the Oscar-winning performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster have become legendary (and for good reason, they are both intensely focused and driven), but the picture leaves scummy feelings in its wake, as if Demme had suddenly turned carnival barker for the ultimate freak show. FBI trainee Foster, invited into the gruesome investigation of a serial killer, seems to climb the ranks awfully easily, being allowed to do potentially dangerous work on her own as well as going mano a mano with Hopkins' Dr. Hannibal Lecter, an imprisoned cannibal who may hold the key to the crimes. There's chilly art in Demme's presentation--it's a polished piece of work--but I soon tired of the Woman as Hero underlying theme, complete with a who's-in-the-dungeon finale that doesn't work at all, the sacrificing of real human drama for shock value and lots of outlandish violence (such as a mutilated security guard hanging from the top of a prison cell like an angel). The black-humored kicker is that all this perverseness is good for a raunchy thrill, and what better way to arouse a stultified audience than to give us two psychopaths--one who eats his victims, the other who carves up women. **1/2 from ****