It’s a very familiar genre exercise, but Brad Anderson’s tight direction along with good performances from Kinnaman and Frank make it engaging
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.

What a movie!
I was really astonished with the intense scenes that kept you wanting for more. A great movie that reminds me of the 90’s era action thrillers.

No agenda being followed and straight forward story that keeps you urging for more.

A movie with meaning and purpose that will keep you happy once you leave the theatre.

Great performance from the main cop swedish character and the supporting actress.

The movie is well paced and does not stretch for prolonged time.

The villain gang was well structured and the members were interesting with individual unique characters.

I was really surprised that this movie didn’t get the recognition it deserves.

It’s a very familiar genre exercise, but Brad Anderson’s tight direction along with good performances from Kinnaman and Frank make it engaging
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.

The Cop Who Defies Deaf Ears
Previously, actor Joel Kinneman played an ordinary, everyday, working-class citizen without the power of speech on a path to vigilante justice in director John Woo’s slam-bang actioneer “The Silent Night.” In “Machinist” director Brad Anderson’s edgy, suspenseful thriller “The Silent Hour,” Kinneman portrays a Boston Police Detective who loses his hearing during an accident in the line of duty. Although “Silent Hour” doesn’t ripple with gunfire galore, this tense, 94-minute movie relies more on suspense and tension than Woo’s bloodthirsty shoot’em up. Comparatively, Woo’s vigilante epic surpasses Anderson’s taut nail-biter in terms of bullet-blasting mayhem. Instead, Anderson conjures up white-knuckled suspense galore as Kinneman’s hearing impaired detective must rescue a deaf woman who witnessed a double homicide by a group of low-life thugs sent to silence her with malice aforethought. Initially, Frank Shaw (Kinneman of “RoboCop”) and his longtime partner Boston Police Detective Doug Slater (Mark Strong of “Kingsman: The Secret Service”) are dispatched to interview a deaf woman, Ava Fremont (Sandra Mae Frank of “Season of Love”), who not only saw the killings but also recorded them on her cell phone. Now, Slater persuaded Shaw to interview Ava because the policeman who specializes in talking to the deaf is not available. Reluctantly, Shaw agrees to question Ava, and the detectives get all the details required for their investigation. As Shaw and Slater head off on their separate ways, Shaw remembers that he left his cell phone at Ava’s apartment, so he turns around and cruises back to retrieve it.

Unexpectedly, when he returns to Ava’s apartment building, Shaw encounters several gun-toting thugs who have come to kill her. However, they don’t plan to shoot her full of lead. Instead, they plan to overdose her on a drug she had previously weaned herself off. Meantime, Slater has no idea his partner is going back to Ava. The group of trigger-happy thugs confront our heroine. Happily, our heroic deaf cop intervenes and thwarts their initial efforts to end Ava’s life. Miraculously, they manage to escape from their enemy. Nevertheless, the villains have them both bottled up in the ten-story York Building. Indeed, a gunman in the lobby has his eyes glued to a monitor that is tied into the elevator cameras. If Shaw and Ava’s predicament weren’t jinxed enough, two uniformed cops arrive, but they do not come to rescue our hero and heroine. The chief villain, Mason Lynch (Mekhi Phifer of “Divergent”), has summoned them because they are dirty cops on the take. “The Silent Hour” bristles with cat and mouse tension as our hero and heroine evade their adversaries in a building sealed off by the villains. Mason has gunmen posted outside at the exits as well as inside. Predictably, in an effort to attract attention, Shaw sets a room ablaze with matches, and firemen arrive to complicate everything.

Ava and Shaw dodge these villainous felons, until Shaw can get a message off to his partner. Predictably, Slater wastes no time careening back to the high-rise. The back story of “Silent Hour” is the property owner is evicting all his tenants. Essentially, he wants to convert the apartments into expensive condominiums for the affluent. A tenant named Dante has a recording studio in his apartment. He has run the volume of his music to maximum levels to protest the evictions. We know the owner is an avaricious sleaze bag because one of his tenants is an elderly woman who will most surely die when she is evicted. The contemporary society depicted in “The Silent Hour” is unsavory and grim. Our hero lost his ability to hear when he collided with a motor vehicle while pursuing an armed felon. Although he recovers from the accident, Shaw struggles in his efforts to get the hang of the hearing aid. Not surprisingly, this gadget always picks the worst times to crap out on him. Of course, this should come as no surprise for audiences. Director Brad Anderson keeps the action moving along at a brisk pace. Primarily, Anderson and freshman scenarist Dan Hall confine themselves to the apartment house itself since it towers at the center of the melodrama. Moreover, they heighten the suspense by painting the hero and heroine in one corner after another as they evade the assailants. As usual, Kinneman delivers a compelling but sympathetic performance as a self-dubbed “old dog” who must learn new tricks. He laments the position his hearing loss has put him in both on the job and at home. He cannot appreciate his daughter’s growth as a musician because he cannot hear her play. Naturally, Anderson heightens the suspense during those moments when Shaw’s hearing aid malfunctions. If you’re yearning for a violent, bullet-riddled actioneer, “The Silent Hour” discharges only about a quarter of the number of bullets that whined away in Kinneman’s early epic “Silent Night.” Nevertheless, our hero is challenged sufficiently throughout “The Silent Hour” as he struggles to preserve not only his own life but also the damsel-in-distress. Happily, the film ends on a positive note. Altogether, a robust capable cast and Anderson’s acute sense of timing pay off in the long run. This above-average but contrived epic never wears out its welcome and leaves you feeling good.