Masterful thriller

Rating: Null/10 (10 September 2015)

The first film in the Hannibal Lecter trilogy, one of the only films to win the Big Five of Oscars, generally considered to be one of the best films of all time and Anthony Hopkins's crowning achievement in acting. And that's only scratching the surface.
Everything in The Silence of the Lambs is cinema at its finest. The dialogues are crafted with perfection. These are conversation that simply ooze atmosphere and hint at backstories untold. They're also very memorable and quotable. The characters are out of the ordinary in just the right way. The protagonist Clarice Starling is normal enough, except for her past. But it's the villain that has imprinted himself so permanently to our cultural consciousness. This is a man that they would have worshipped as a god in ancient times. A dark genius, who fields both his smarts and his sophistication with razor sharp focus, always with a knowing smile on the corner of his mouth. He makes even the act of cannibalism look cultured.
The movie also deserves a nod for its technical qualities. The visuals and the music support the atmosphere and the mood perfectly and you'd never guess it was made with such a small budget. Money well spent indeed.
The Silence of the Lambs is a thriller you must see to truly appreciate the genre. It shows that not all thrillers have to aim for hyperrealism to be successful, that there's room for ideas larger than life and that it's the characters that make it scary, not the amount of blood and dead bodies.