Starting February 6, the crime thriller «The Silent Hour» starring Ewan Kinnaman will be in theaters. Interestingly, after John Woo’s action film «Silent Night» (2023), which featured almost no dialogues, this is the second film in the Swedish-American actor’s filmography to have something related to silence in its title. In this review, we will tell you what kind of movie the director of «The Machinist» (2004), Brad Anderson, made.
Pluses:
a moderately exciting crime thriller; Ewen Kinnaman looks confident not only as a lone hero, but also as a vulnerable character whom you really sympathize with; the plot has tension, which is an important factor for a thriller;
Minuses:
a sufficient number of questionable moments, mostly related to the ineptitude of the bad guys; some may not find the level of tension or even action scenes enough; in general, a low-ambitious project that a priori does not claim to be more than a one-time entertainment at the screen;
«The Silent Hour»
Genre crime thriller, action movie
Director Brad Anderson
Starring Ewel Kinnaman, Mekhi Phifer, Mark Strong, Michael Eklund, Anthony Grant, Sandra Frank, Jonathan Coenssen, Christopher Dingley, Mike Parrish, Matthew Camilleri, Katrina Lupi, Beppe Abela
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
One day, Boston Police Homicide Detective Frank Shaw and his partner Doug Slater are sent to meet a criminal, but he tries to escape. During the pursuit, Frank suffers a serious head injury, which causes him to rapidly lose his hearing. After rehabilitation, armed with a hearing aid, the man returns to duty, but there is no trace of the former confident cop.
Meanwhile, Doug has moved to the narcotics unit, but the former partners’ paths cross again when it comes to questioning Ava, a witness to a double murder. Since the girl has been deaf since birth and needs a sign language interpreter to communicate with her, but one is currently unavailable, Frank’s new skills as a sign language learner can greatly help the investigation.
Upon arriving at the almost empty apartment building, the police receive good evidence in the form of a video recording on the phone, and now it seems like a matter of time before the culprits are punished. But after the meeting, Frank has to go back to the girl because he forgot his gadget at her place. At the scene, the cop is horrified to find that Ava has already been visited by suspicious guys with obviously bad intentions.
On paper, Brad Anderson’s new film looks like a combination of good old action movies with Bruce Willis — «Die Hard» (1988) and «16 Blocks» (2006), whose creators, in turn, were clearly looking back at Clint Eastwood’s «Through the Looking Glass» (1977). From the former, «The Silent Hour» borrows the narrative of how a desperate lone hero is forced to rely solely on himself in the limited space of a high-rise building in a confrontation with the bad guys. From the second — the need to protect a critical witness from corrupt cops.
However, a significant difference between the aforementioned action films and Anderson’s film is that it may seem like a movie with dynamic action scenes only at first glance, but in reality it is a more or less solid, though not without annoying flaws, crime thriller. Firearms are not used that often here.
The movie begins as a story of the origin of a certain champion of goodness who has stepped off the pages of colorful comic books. In particular, Frank Shaw resembles Daredevil, return which is expected to be released in early March. An accident, a defect in one of the senses (for the Marvel character it was his eyesight, and one of the criminals will suffer a similar fate here), the need to get used to irritating sounds, and, ultimately, to learn to live with adversity, which in some ways makes you stronger. Ewen Kinnaman can only pull on his superhero cape and go out into the night to smash villains’ faces.
It is not without reason that the lead supercop (as his partner characterizes him) has already tried on the image of Rick Flagg Jr. in both parts of «Suicide Squad», just as Mark Strong played the role of Dr. Thaddeus Sivana in «Shazam» (2019) in the same, now-defunct, DCEU. In «The Silent Hour», Kinnaman’s character and his accidental partner also have a truly superheroic ability — the screenwriters’ conveniently ubiquitous luck, thanks to which they manage to avoid falling to the hands of the bad guys at the first opportunity.
That’s why it’s hard to get rid of the idea that someone is trying to deceive you, even if it’s quite professionally. After all, how is it possible that our long-suffering John McClane and his companion are constantly lucky, while the sinister black uncle and his gang behave so clumsily? Either they didn’t notice the fugitives in the window, or they were distracted and didn’t see the poor people running down the escape stairs, or they fell for yet another trick of deaf fiction.
At the same time, given the fact that the emphasis is placed on the thriller genre rather than the action movie, the dynamics of the events sometimes sags (the characters have time to talk about what torments their tormented souls), and the degree of tension is not always kept at the proper level. And this is not to mention the blatant predictability that is presented as a revelation in the final act.
On the other hand, Anderson’s creation is a clear example of how you can squeeze out the maximum, or at least something close to it, with minimal resources. Globally, the film is able to keep your attention throughout the entire runtime, and if you close your eyes to some questionable script decisions, you can even get some pleasure from watching it.
Nevertheless, this thriller is not devoid of really exciting, tense scenes, when you frankly worry about the characters, which is facilitated by their vulnerable situation (here we again recall the barefoot, wounded and exhausted, and therefore most empathetic McClane).
«The Silent Hour» — is a frankly disposable, lacking in ambition and extremely modest, but sane thriller that has its uses on a cold February evening. Even if its twists and turns run the risk of slipping completely out of your mind the next February morning.
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