Great film that runs too long

Rating: 9/10 (31 December 2016)

Silence is amazing. Martin Scorsese has proved to be the most consistent filmmaker of all time with a great body of work for each decade he's made movies. Here he continues to be as versatile and impressive as ever. Just by looking at the past two movies he has made, Silence and The Wolf of Wall Street, you can see this man has no bounds. He's probably the only filmmaker who's quality hasn't gone down over time, and this film proves it.
Although this movie is great, its not perfect. Now, this might seem to contradict everything I just wrote, but you will feel the pain all the Christians in this movie felt by siting through it. By that I mean, you'll need some serious stamina to get through the movie, it's extremely long and at times can be very boring. Its almost like Scorsese was trying to torture us so we can relate to the people on screen. Some parts feel a little repetitive too, especially after the two leads split up. The beginning drags on a little too much and so does the end. The movie didn't seem to know when to end, after the protagonist makes his final-ish decision in the movie, the movie should have been over just a bit after, but instead it kept going. I also feel people who aren't a part of a faith or really familiar with it might not enjoy some of the religious rituals depicted early on, honestly I'm religious and found a lot of those parts boring. I also didn't like that we had a disembodied God voice or the ending "reveal", its just a tool to spoon feed the message to the audience and completely unnecessary, taking us away from reality and taking away from Rodregues' struggle. The ending "reveal" was especially pointless telling us something we didn't need to be told and would have been better if the film let us doubt a bit.
Despite the not-so-goodness I just talked about, this movie stuck with me in a good way. This is one of the few movies where as I thought about it more after watching it, I liked it more rather than less. It's just so rich in meaning, everything about it, the decisions each character makes, from the villagers, the three priests, and the villains of the story. Looking at the Christian villagers and the three priests, everyone makes an important decision that is perfectly fleshed out. the motives and consequences of their actions are thought provoking, but I don't want to spoil anything so I'll move on. This is also one of those movies where the title is a beautiful representation of the film. The idea of silence being both the struggle and answer to those of faith is done perfectly (and kind of ruined when they give God a few lines, but I guess I'll let that slide). Looking away from the message and at the film itself, there are some scenes in this movie that are extremely tense that kept me hooked, of course there are also some less tense dragged out scenes, but when stuff happens and the plot moves it gets interesting and its too well done to ignore.
The entire cast in this movie is great. Liam Neeson isn't in much of this film, but when he is the subtlety of his performance is outstanding. Specifically, his interaction with Andrew Garfield are well done, the awkwardness and genuineness of it is great. Andrew Garfield once again takes the role of a religious man who has his faith tested, pride pushed, and is hunted by the Japanese in Japan. In all honesty, The characters and the films are very different, but this and Hacksaw Ridge are two home runs for Andrew Garfield as he is excellent in both roles, probably more so in this one because of the lack of his creepy smile. Adam Driver, Tadanobu Asano, Yôsuke Kubozuka and the rest of the supporting cast were also excellent and I would have liked to see more of Adam Driver in this because his character didn't have that much of an arch.
Overall loved it, it might be too long and religious for some, but I think you should be able to look past that and really see the deep meaning and excellent filmmaking at work.