The Silent Hour

Director Brad Anderson delivers a film that is more entertaining than you might think. It won't revolutionize anything, but it has a lot more content than you might think, which makes for a pleasant time.

Starring Joel Kinnaman and Sandra Mae Frank, the film follows a Boston detective who loses his hearing after an accident on duty. With his new role as a sign language interpreter for the department, Frank now has the mission of protecting Ava, a deaf woman who witnessed a double murder. The use of sign language is the key to the film's captivating nature, allowing for an impeccable connection between the main characters who, through their lack of hearing, make this suspense thriller have some really well-achieved moments and tension that is well managed by its director.

The good use of sound, with which the film gets an additional plus, makes the simple story take an interesting turn, without being extraordinary or novel, but for what the film proposes it is quite efficient, more so if we add the good work of its director who knows how to place the camera at the moment of exploiting the tension. Then we find the typical argumentative clichés of a script that plays it safe and without major daring, few deaths and little intelligence among the villains stand out, but the game you enter achieves its goal of fair, average and partial entertainment for a film that does not pretend to revolutionize everything, but rather to fulfill its original idea.

A cast that includes supporting actors such as Mark Strong, Mekhi Phifer and Michael Eklund help the film to have the level of commitment it deserves so that you, as a viewer, become hooked on the whole story that is being told to us.

A better bet than you might think, it won't be one of those that will make it into the top of the year, but it does have its charm that makes it more enjoyable than you might think or be carried away by the critics. It has its moments, it has a couple with chemistry and it has just the right level of tension that makes it totally enjoyable to watch, without discounting the message it seeks to convey, which is really the great power that the film has.

Yes, okay, you aren't getting anything original, but The Silent Hour is a well made, taut, action Thriller and thoroughly engaged me from start to finish. Good performances from the cast, especially the two leads.

Yes, okay, you aren't getting anything original, but The Silent Hour is a well made, taut, action Thriller and thoroughly engaged me from start to finish. Good performances from the cast, especially the two leads.

Yes, okay, you aren't getting anything original, but The Silent Hour is a well made, taut, action Thriller and thoroughly engaged me from start to finish. Good performances from the cast, especially the two leads.

Set in Boston, 11 months after suffering massive head trauma in the line of duty, Homicide Detective Frank Shaw (Joel Kinnaman) is struggling to adapt to his life with reduced hearing necessitating the usage of hearing aids and the prospect that within a year's time or less he may lose his hearing completely. An off duty Shaw is approached by his former partner Detective Doug Slater (Mark Strong) who is investigating the murder of two drug pushers and with the Department's interpreter unavailable, Slater enlists Shaw's help in interviewing deaf witness Ava Fremont (Sandra Mae Frank) as Shaw has been taking American Sign Language classes at the behest of his daughter Sam (Katrina Lupi). Shaw reluctantly accompanies Slater to a dilapidated apartment complex with only a few stray tenants as the owner is in the process of evicting the former tenants in favor of condos where the two confirm she has a video of the murder and take her official statement. As Shaw makes his way home, he realizes he left his phone at Ava's apartment prompting him to return where he finds Ava under attack by a team of corrupt cops who intend to stage her as an overdose and Shaw manages to save Ava briefly lose the cops. Without a gun or a phone, Shaw and Ava play a dangerous game of cat and mouse navigating the dilapidated apartment complex in search of either escape or help.

The Silent Hour is the latest from genre director Brad Anderson and is being released on VOD via Paramount's Republic Pictures label. Written by first time credited writer Dan Hall, the AGC Studios produced thriller on paper seems like the kind of film you often associate with VOD releases, modestly budgeted genre pieces that in this theatrical climate are considered "too small" for theaters and more often than not feature lower tier actors like Mel Gibson or Aaron Eckhart. I'm pleased to say that The Silent Hour is actually quite an entertaining experience, even if I attribute that more to the direction and acting than the script itself.

At its core, The Silent Hour is a mash-up of Die Hard by way of 16 Blocks with the added gimmick of hearing impairment of our two leads. While the genre side of things covers standard "protecting a witness" territory from the likes of Clint Eastwood's The Gauntlet or the minor 50s film-noir classic The Narrow Margin, it helps that Brad Anderson is in the director's chair because if you look at his filmography he excels in confined character based thrillers (Transiberian, The Machinist, Session 9, etc.) and not only brings out the best in good material, but can even make more middling material engaging like 2019's Fractured. The Silent Hour's script really doesn't do anything wrong but it's very much a standard genre template and while the gimmick of deafness is there it's not used as memorably as something like Mike Flanagan's Hush or The Quiet Place films used it and when it's used it's usually more for dramatic moments between our leads Joel Kinnaman and Sandra Mae Frank (who is deaf in real life) who are really good in the movie and have some good insights on people who were born deaf versus those who became deaf where Frank signs the line "a single missing piece doesn't make you less whole". The rest of the cast do well playing their roles such as Mekhi Phifer and Mark Strong, even if the familiar script doesn't leave them a lot of standout moments but they're servicable for what's required of them.

The Silent Hour is the definition of "solid rental" as it has an intriguing high concept while not quite having that extra layer of polish to the script that would demand it be shown theatrically. Thanks to a strong pair of leads in Kinnaman and Frank and the tight reliable direction of Brad Anderson, the Silent Hour makes for a quick, effective, and mostly entertaining 90 minutes.

In Boston, homicide detective Frank Shaw (Joel Kinnaman) is chasing a criminal when he is hit by a car. He has a sensible hearing loss and eleven months later, his doctor tells him that he will become deaf in a few months. While the devastated Frank is drinking in a bar, his former partner and now narcotics detective Doug Slater (Mark Strong) asks Frank to help him in an investigation. He needs to interview Ava Fremont (Sandra Mae Frank), a deaf witness to the murder of a drug dealer, but the ASL translator is on vacation and not available for one month. Frank goes with Doug to Ava's apartment in an almost empty residence building and they learn that the residents have been evicted since the owner wants to renovate the building to rent the apartments for a higher class. Frank learns that Ava is a former drug addicted and finds Narcan in her bathroom cabinet. Ava delivers her cellphone to Doug with the footage of the murder, and they leave her place. While driving back home, Frank notes that he has forgotten his cellphone at Ava's apartment. He returns to her home and finds that a group of men led by the black Lynch (Mekhi Phifer) is hunting her down. Soon he learns that Lynch and the other men are corrupt cops that want to simulate an overdose in Ava to kill her. Further, Ava is not drug addicted and used drugs only when her grandmother died, and she was depressed. Now their only hope is to find a telephone and contact Doug Slater to save them.

"The Silent Hour" (2024) is an engaging and claustrophobic thriller with a cat and mouse game story. Joel Kinnaman performs the role of an honest police detective that is involved in the attempt to murder a witness by dirty cops. Sandra Mae Frank is deaf in real life and is comfortable in the role of the smart deaf witness that is saved by Frank Shaw. The plot is predictable and flaws when Ava discharges the pistol retrieved by Frank on the window, leaving them without a weapon again. Despite the flaws, this film is highly entertaining. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Not Available"

I barely recognized Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman. He has a very distinctive voice and that's how I knew I saw him before. That was in the excellent series The Killing (2011), a show you definitely need to watch if you like the mystery/crime genre. That said he did a good job playing the detective who's losing his hearing little by little. The story has a good suspense level but it is a bit predictable. Nonetheless once you're into the story you'll never get bored as there's plenty of suspenseful action scenes. The entire cast was good with their performances. The Silent Hour won't win Oscars but it's certainly worth watching.