Silence ShowMeTheMovies Review

Rating: 4/10 (24 January 2017)

https://showme-themovies.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/review-silence.html Martin Scorsese's passion project of 28 years falls upon deaf ears with this reviewer.
Upon first glance, Silence appeared to be a long-winded Samurai action flick, with the likes of actors Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver placing high expectations on Scorsese's new offering. In contrast, the film is about the tribulations of religion, and the Japanese' views on the outlawed Catholicism in the 17th century.
The plot primarily centres around a character known as Ferreria (Neeson) - a Christian mentor captured by the Japanese - and a pair of his Portugese students Rodrigues (Garfield) and Garupe (Driver), whom, upon hearing rumours of Ferreria having apostatized (renouncing his religious beliefs for the purpose of saving his own life), travel to Japan in order to search for him, whilst remaining unseen by those who would object their faith.
This plot, seemingly 90-minute-worthy, is dragged out by Scorsese to the point that the film becomes repetitive. Throughout, Christian persecution is a naturally recurring theme, but there are only so many times one can be shown the death/torture of people - or their forceable denouncement of Christ - before you become desensitised to its' occurrence.
Silence, seemingly alluding to not only the silence of God during times of need for the leads, but also to the extrinsic lack of music and/or sound entirely throughout. On multiple occasions, Rodrigues (Garfield) is forced to test his faith, and finds it difficult to accept criticism of such; what he viewed as a slightly dangerous mission to recover his mentor transforms into a far more sinister quest - and Andrew Garfield shakily conveys this by breaking down in tears in almost every scene, upon which he is told that his God is not listening.
The absence of music is another poor choice - awkward silences apparent and a disturbing lack of atmosphere. Moments within the film are essentially devoid of sound between dialogue, and special effects in this department are minimal. As a result, the intentional efforts to portray themes of isolation and loneliness fall short, and merely boils down to two and a half hours of little-to-no substance.
Alongside this, the singular concept is over-played throughout the duration of the picture - any attempt to change its' plot direction just falls flat and then continues on the same course. Even when Ferreria's presence comes into play, it barely adds anything and Neeson is underused - just more torture, more apostatizing, and more of Andrew Garfield crying, to the point I would just roll my eyes by the end.
The acting quality was shoddy to say the least; Garfield and Driver's attempts at (I believe) a Portugese accent sounded like they were trying too hard, and their chemistry lacked (possibly due to the lack of atmospheric noise) with awkward pauses. As Catholics who are meant to have been together for a long time, they did not seem like good friends in any way - arguing about their mission and then just being sad together does not appear to depict a brotherly bond. The chemistry between Ferreria and Rodrigues is slightly better, since Neeson did work well as a jaded fallen mentor - but still lacklustre.
The story does not really get anywhere by closing credits - the film just feels very dense, as if I was meant to get the point in it; which seems like it is not apparent at all. The movie gives off a very pretentious vibe like this was supposed to be the next Passion of the Christ, but with the lack of soundtrack and awkward direction (namely, that particularly ridiculous scene in which Jesus himself talks to one of the characters) was closer to watching a film from the era of Ben Hur or Jason and the Argonauts when movies were far more limited.
What can be commended is that the writing quality was not terrible - although the length of the film was completely unjustified, and the actors (particularly Garfield) did not pull off the intended notes - the themes are indeed very interesting, and the script itself satisfactory - probably because this film is an adaption from a book written in the 1960s.
Silence has many issues overall, and I fail to understand how Scorsese invested 28 years on developing this project, or how the plot could have interested him so much that a 2 hour 40 minute run-time was justified (a 30 minute short would have sufficed). While not awful, it certainly needed much more refinement, and a change in cast that never came. I have little faith in this doing well at box office.