Very boring

Rating: 4/10 (20 September 2018)

SILENCE is the second overlong and self-indulgent film I've seen from director Martin Scorsese, following on from the very poor show which was HUGO. This film seems to have been made as a propaganda piece for the Catholic church, exploring the historical plight of Jesuit missionaries in Japan in the 17th century. As a film, it's surprisingly simplistic in tone, with the Japanese depicted as either good (those who've "seen the light", of course) or diabolically evil (committing all manner of torture and murder in gruelling and shocking scenes reminiscent of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST). As a whole, the film is overlong and very boring indeed, characters given to endless introspection. Garfield tries hard but others like Driver and Neeson seem to be cast adrift. This is a very well shot film, the only decent thing about it. Otherwise, SILENCE is a film that seems to exist solely because of the director's Italian-American background.