The Silent Hour — The Silent Hour(VOD)

The Silent Hour is a new crime thriller directed by Brad Anderson, and has recently been released on streaming platforms

In 2001 Anderson directed the clever and ambitious horror thriller Session 9 and followed up with the critically and commercially successful psychological thriller The Machinist where Christian Bale notoriously lost 62 pounds in order to play the role of the protagonist.  Since then Anderson’s progress has been respectable if patchy with indifferently received features padded out by work on prestigious TV series like ‘The Wire’ and ‘Boardwalk Empire’.

The Silent Hour does not really mark a full return to form but it does boast an intriguing high concept (hard of hearing detective and deaf witness conspire to defeat a group of criminals pursuing them in a Boston high-rise).  Joel Kinnaman (probably best known as Rick Flag in Suicide Squad movies and as Alex Murphy in the Robocop remake) stars as Detective Frank Shaw who has been left mostly and increasingly deaf as the result of an injury sustained on the job.  He is attached as an interim interpreter to Ava (Sandra Mae Frank) a deaf young photographer who has witnessed the murder of local drug dealers and has evidence against the killers.  Faced with the possibility of her testifying the gangsters try to kill Ava and make it look like an accidental overdose (the woman is a former junkie).  However, Frank arrives and a tense standoff ensues with the killers and their corrupt cop colleagues.

A brisk, tightly edited, fairly high-octane thriller with an effective colour scheme based on shades of teal and cyan, The Silent Hour is a neo-noir less reminiscent of the deep-focus, elegant silver and black studio features the term film noir usually evokes and more of those gritty, street level proto guerilla shot movies such as Samuel Fuller’s Underworld USA (1961).  The film does try for an authentic feel and it’s likely that the interiors of the condemned building serving for exterior shots were also utilised.  However, the term authenticity in this context is moot.  Here Malta doubles for Boston and the film’s names both playing Bostonians are a Swede (Kinnaman) and a Brit (Mark Strong).  The accents sound fine to me and the street scenes are convincing but I do wonder what Americans feel about this type of representation which happens time and time again.

Anderson approaches this material with a great deal of nuance.  He should be congratulated on his sensitivity in casting real life deaf actress Sandra Mae Frank in the role of Ava and she shares good chemistry with Kinnaman.  His commitment to realism extends to making his chief villain, Mason Lynch (Mekhi Phifer) somewhat incompetent and even occasionally sympathetic.  Even the heroes’ strongest suit, that they can communicate without speaking is compromised by the fact that Detective Shaw is very new to signing.

Overall, The Silent Hour  is a solid and involving thriller- with a brisk pace, and a neo noir tone.