The film itself is actually very good, however it lacked in parts I found. Maybe this was all building up to the great bits, but in my opinion, maybe there was just a bit too much of a build up. I’m gonna have to rewind a bit here and go back to the start of the film. The opening credits are plain weird, but very good! I don’t think I have ever seen a film open with such weird filmography, however, it got me intrigued as to what the film was going to be like, so I suppose it did it’s job.

The opening scenes are pretty important to the rest of the movie. We are thrown into a drugs raid which is carried out in what I can best describe as a small market town in some foreign country. FBI Agent Clarice Starling (Julianne Moore) knows the subject she wants to arrest well and knows how dangerous the suspect is. However, theres another team supposedly working alongside Clarice’s team who kind of messes things up and Clarice ends up having to shoot the women who she wants as she is getting shot herself. One problem is, the women Clarice is shooting at is holding a baby. Now, for those of you who don’t know, FBI agent Clarice was played by Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs.

While all this is going on, Lecter has seen the papers and seen his old friend Clarice and the story. He decides to write to Clarice, giving Clarice a clue as to where he is in the world. The thing is, Lecter is bored of being in a ‘hibernation’ state, hiding from everyone, he wants a battle once again. There is a fingerprint left on the letter and some clues in the scent of the perfume Lecter was wearing when he wrote the letter which gives big clues to where he is. Clarice ring’s the office that Rinaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini) (the FBI agent who is studying the case of the suicide) works in and asks for a tape of a perfume store to be copied and sent to the FBI in America. Rinaldo becomes a bit wary of what’s going on and looks at the tape himself, only to see Lecter in it and begins to wonder what is going on.

So, the gore factor. Well, I have to say, there isn’t really that many scenes with gore in. It’s mostly saved to the end scenes, but what gore there is, it’s pretty intense. For example. You see a guy sitting there with his brain exposed and Lecter taking parts out of his brain, cooking them and then feeding them to the same bloke. Pretty disgusting yes, but it’s all there for a reason and it does make great viewing. If you don’t like the gore side of things all that much, you can always look away as you know when the gore is coming and there really isn’t that much of it. This film is more investigations than anything else.

One thing that will stand out to you, and you will notice is the soundtrack. Right from the opening credits the soundtrack and music itself is used to it’s full potential. A lot of opera is used in the film as it is basically set in Italy. Now, I’m not a fan of opera, but it didn’t put me off, it actually helped me watch the film. The music is very calming, which is just what you need to get your suspense up in this sort of film. It was used extremely well and the music, in my opinion could not have been done better. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not all opera, there are some more recent types of music used in the film aswell. They have struck a great balance. The thing that stood out most to me was the fact that music was playing nearly all the way through the film. Even when dialogue is going on, theres background music, be it calming music or suspenseful music, it always seems to be used. This has a great effect in the film. I can’t seem to quite get my hand on what it is that makes the music so good, so you’ll have to watch it yourself to find out! I’ll list a couple of the songs used, but I doubt many of us will know them, so I’ll keep it small! Actually, I can’t as the music on the soundtrack is listed in scenes, so it won’t make much sense to you. However, a couple of the song’s are listed as featuring Sir Anthony Hopkins, so whether he had something to do with the music I don’t know, if you know, leave a comment and let me know will ya!?