The Silencing (2020)

Rating: ⭐½

The only reason why anyone would consider watching this unknown thriller is Game of Thrones' Jaime Lannister, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. On the offset, The Silencing looked promising. A mysterious disappearance, an unfriendly small town and Nikolaj playing the lead. However, it doesn't take long before the plot becomes familiar and the dull atmosphere and characters start to wear you down. Soon, you realise that you don't really care much about all the characters in this story and it starts to feel draggy despite the short running time of 93 minutes.

Sadly, The Silencing falls under the low budget and low grade we seem to be getting a lot of lately. Not really something I would recommend to pass the time during the stay at home pandemic. No, there are plenty of other movies and TV series which you can spend more enjoyably as you spend more time to stay at home. I would not fault Nikolaj for this failed effort. To be fair he did a decent job here given the poorly written material he has to work with. Even though his character is played straight and as somebody "real", one can't help being amazed at his ability to escape death from being hit by an arrow, as well as being shot at, and even managing to survive a miraculous make shift surgery to remove the bullet. It is also amazing how many times his car breaks down and how that doesn't really matter as he walks to his home without problem each time that happens. So what we have are some lapse in logic as well as repetitive plot tactics. The film's title is also misguided. It seems to be referring to the condition of the victims of the serial killer where their throats appears to be operated on and rendering the victims unable to speak. This is never really explained in detailed despite its reference in the title. The film's focus seems to be on Nikolaj's character as he struggles with the usual dark history in his past and how he eventually gets his redemption in a violent and a rather morally incorrect conclusion. The killer's motivation and background when eventually revealed were very brief and the viewer is left with a poor understanding of this as it was not given much importance.

I really wanted to like this movie. It has a decent cast, and took itself seriously but it was just too slow, boring, and familiar for me to give this a pass.