Review of Silence (2017) by Daniel S — 09 Dec 2018

I'm no fan of religion at the best of times, but if you're giving me characters who have the temerity to walk into someone else's country and tell them that their religion is 100% wrong but a dose of Jesus will definitely sort them out, to me, they're the bad guys.

This is a film that adds to that an American and a Brit doing dodgy, 'Portuguese' accents. Never mind that if you're casting Portuguese characters you should probably go with some slightly more ethnic actors, but even if you're sticking with the whites, at least just let them speak in their own accents.

They're already not speaking Portuguese, we're already suspending disbelief. Especially when Liam Neeson comes in and does nothing more than slightly shave the rough edges off his Northern Irish accent and you don't question it.

I digress. The film looks gorgeous, comes in dangerously close territory to discussing the whole religious salesmen idea in an interesting way, and features a nice trio of performances by the 3 lead caucasians.

But overall, I couldn't get myself past the pro missionary idea enough to engage with the film in any meaningful way. Also, I found myself completely crushing on Andrew Garfield's hair. That boy has a mane and it's thick and luscious and glorious.