The Silence of the Praise

The Silence of the Lambs is only the third movie to win all 5 major Oscars (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is another): Best Picture, Director, Actor (and Anthony Hopkins has some of the least screen time for a best actor winner), Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is the only horror film to ever win Best Picture, and it made all sorts of money-- staying on top of the box office for like 5 weeks and already having made back its budget in the first. So the data coming in would say that I would probably write a review on how good Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster were, and how this is such a landmark horror film that would rival The Shining as being the best ever. But I’m not going to. I believe this movie has been highly overrated, and if you allow me to explain, perhaps you’ll end agreeing with me too.

When you think about this movie, the first thing you think of is either fava beans or Hannibal the Cannibal. But the star is Jodie Foster… What’s her character’s name again? Clarence, Karen, Carly? You know what, doesn’t really matter. We’ll save Jodie Foster for later because Anthony Hopkins is really what this movie is known for. And there’s a lot of good to indeed say. His looking right at the camera as his character is introduced, his improv mocking of Foster’s accent, his unblinking eyes and famous lines. Oscar Winner? Sure. It’s all there. My criticism will be discussed later when we talk about the director. What I will say, however, is that Ted Levine is vitally underappreciated as Buffalo Bill. First, I’m glad to see Teddy in a role that isn’t a sheriff or cop. Buffalo Bill’s luring of women and skinning his victims already made him a viable villain, but it’s his dancing in front of the mirror that takes the crown and serves as the creepiest thing in the film.

Okay, I can’t hold back any longer. Gotta talk about how this movie suffers. Over the course of filming, I have no issue with the directing. It’s not too special, but it’s not bad; the camerawork is a different story. It’s inconsistent, sloppy, and moves around too much. It tries creating a style that just doesn’t work for the film. The exception is Dr. Lecter’s scenes. Everything works there, but it seems like the film basically was built around what happened there. Which brings me to the actual story and the editing. We start with Jodie proving herself in the FBI and toughing it out as a female there. It’s brief, and some exposition is quickly thrown in to establish her character because, after all, we have to hurry up and get to Hannibal. Which still doesn’t seem totally logical. They go to one of the most dangerous and cunning psychiatrists to help catch the notorious Buffalo Bill, and they send an FBI agent who hasn’t even graduated? That doesn’t add up for me. Fast forward a scene or 2 and we get introduced to Buffalo Bill. It’s a disturbing scene, but now we know who everyone is looking for. So the small amount of film dedicated to detective work really hardly serves any purpose because, after all, let’s just get back to Hannibal. However smart the Hannibal scenes may be, they’re also predictable. And the music really is more nonchalant than anything, and when you mix it all together, you get a film that really isn’t all that scary. It’s a cop story with a good, not great, female lead and an unremarkable story, so it all dwindles down to Hannibal. And he’s truly a pretty great movie psycho, but surround him in a film that is surrounded around him, and the result is just eh.

The climax has predictable moments, but it was leading up to the tense finish I was hoping for the entire film. And then the decisive moment happened and it was so lame. The redeeming part is how the movie ended because despite my criticism from before, I thoroughly enjoyed the ending. So there is that. But if you want an actually scary film with a cool, strong heroine, go watch Alien, Zero Dark Thirty, or just something else.