An Interesting but Drawn Out and One-sided Film

Rating: 6/10 (3 December 2017)

I think this movie has a lot of good things about it. The cinematography was incredible and the performances were good as well. The locations were also great to look at. You can tell Scorsese was extremely passionate about this film, and you can also tell that he tried to tell this story as raw as he possibly could. With that being said, my problem with the film is that it seems too one-sided. The Japanese are treated as one-dimensional villains, and the movie doesn't go into enough detail about why the Japanese didn't want the missionaries in their country or why the missionaries may be wrong. Another problem I had with this movie is that it is too long and a little cold. The movie was drawn out definitely by the end, and I really didn't feel any emotion by the end. This movie took Scorsese over 20 years to bring to the screen, but honestly, it's one of the weaker films in his filmography.