Mann is a brilliant writer/director, and unfortunately he was a little to head of his time on this film.
I was a teenager when this movie was originally released, and it seriously disturbed me as a kid. Seeing a serial killer in a movie was rare enough in the mid-eighties, but to show the thoughts of a serial killer basically, putting the audience in the frame of mind was just so far from anything else at the time. So watching it was disturbing, which I think for people who missed this, they had that experience with Silence Of The Lambs. So that is the division of the reviews I see here. If you saw this when it original came out then it almost certainly left a big impact, and likely you realize how important and groundbreaking this film was. Which is exactly what reviews seem to say if they like the film. If you saw it years after first seeing Silence Of The Lambs, the impact, for many reasons, cinematography was based on a much lower budget, production levels in general were lower, and seeing it after seeing all the films that ere inspired by it, loses that sense of originality and that is going to decrease your experience of the film. But as many have said, this film, being first in many ways deserves the same level of acclaim that has gone on to Silence Of The Lambs. It had only a small box office unfortunately. I think as the studio was actually scared of pushing it at the time, it was so different than anything they had seen the time, and the subject was so dark. If they had I think it would have been hugely well received.
Overall because of budget, and having this movie as a template, Silence Of The Lambs is a superior film, but that is because the director had this movie to understand how to make a movie of this genre, and Michael Mann was basically creating it with his film. And some have said Tom Noonan was better than Anthony Hopkins, but I actually think they are equal, and i give props for Demme and Hopkins not going for the same feel as Noonan's a and Mann's portrayal, so bravo to both as they are the two most important films in the genre in my opinion.
Do i recommend seeing it now, if you haven't seen it yet, then yes, but only if you keep in mind that you are seeing a movie that has been copied many times since, if anything at all feels cliche, trust me, it was as far from it when it first came out. And so that is hard to do, but if you can do that, you likely will start to get how important a film this was.
I was a teenager when this movie was originally released, and it seriously disturbed me as a kid. Seeing a serial killer in a movie was rare enough in the mid-eighties, but to show the thoughts of a serial killer basically, putting the audience in the frame of mind was just so far from anything else at the time. So watching it was disturbing, which I think for people who missed this, they had that experience with Silence Of The Lambs. So that is the division of the reviews I see here. If you saw this when it original came out then it almost certainly left a big impact, and likely you realize how important and groundbreaking this film was. Which is exactly what reviews seem to say if they like the film. If you saw it years after first seeing Silence Of The Lambs, the impact, for many reasons, cinematography was based on a much lower budget, production levels in general were lower, and seeing it after seeing all the films that ere inspired by it, loses that sense of originality and that is going to decrease your experience of the film. But as many have said, this film, being first in many ways deserves the same level of acclaim that has gone on to Silence Of The Lambs. It had only a small box office unfortunately. I think as the studio was actually scared of pushing it at the time, it was so different than anything they had seen the time, and the subject was so dark. If they had I think it would have been hugely well received.
Overall because of budget, and having this movie as a template, Silence Of The Lambs is a superior film, but that is because the director had this movie to understand how to make a movie of this genre, and Michael Mann was basically creating it with his film. And some have said Tom Noonan was better than Anthony Hopkins, but I actually think they are equal, and i give props for Demme and Hopkins not going for the same feel as Noonan's a and Mann's portrayal, so bravo to both as they are the two most important films in the genre in my opinion.
Do i recommend seeing it now, if you haven't seen it yet, then yes, but only if you keep in mind that you are seeing a movie that has been copied many times since, if anything at all feels cliche, trust me, it was as far from it when it first came out. And so that is hard to do, but if you can do that, you likely will start to get how important a film this was.