Imagine being deaf and being the only witness to a double murder. Okay, now, what if those perps ‘happened’ to get wind of the single deaf witness to the murder they committed? And what happens to an investigator when he goes deaf after an accident trying to catch a suspect? How does he cope with his new disability? Can he still be an effective investigator?
These are the questions that come up in Brad Anderson’s (Session 9 2001, The Machinist 2004) The Silent Hour. Released on October 11, 2024, through Republic Pictures, the script was written by Dan Hall, who was inspired after reading an article about NYPD officer Dan Carione, who uses a hearing aid after an on-the-job accident. Joel Kinnaman (RoboCop 2014, The Suicide Squad 2021) stars as Detective Frank Shaw, Sandra Mae Frank (Soul to Keep 2018, New Amsterdam series) as Ava Fremont, Mekhi Phifer (8 Mile 2002, ER series) as Mason Lynch, and Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes 2009, Cruella 2021) as Detective Doug Slater.
With these factors all in play, The Silent Hour could easily be your run-of-the-mill, cliched, feel-good flick with a newly disabled person meeting an established disabled person under strange circumstances. This is not that flick.
Silent Hour is genuinely exciting and scary. It pulls at the heartstrings with the relationship Detective Shaw and Ava are thrust into from the start when he and his co-worker show up at Ava’s apartment without an interpreter for her to give her statement, only to find out that Shaw, who has not been taking his ASL lessons seriously still in denial of being really deaf, is going to stand in as ‘interpreter.’ Shaw is not bad, but he is not good either, and Ava patiently corrects him throughout the movie.
Here, we get to really see Sandra Mae Frank, who is truly deaf, shine. Here she is with her life, not only getting threatened with eviction but now with thugs gunning for her because she happened to pick that night to shoot some photography and caught a murder instead. She is helping the newbie with his ASL and is supposed to be tasked with keeping her above ground. We even get to learn how to drop the F-bomb in ASL!
Acting-wise, nothing is played for laughs. Everybody plays it straight, with the exception of one sequence where Shaw teaches Ava how to hold a gun at the window while he creates a distraction at the apartment they are holding up in. To see her face when she empties the clip at Mason and almost hits him is priceless.
Overall, The Silent Hour has faired decently with audiences. In real life, Sandra Mae Frank is deaf, and the film is a useful demonstration of how such actors can be integrated into a film. It is a Thriller, made more so by the main characters’ deafness. The main actions are hiding and seeking in an empty building, where the goodies use a variety of ‘tricks’ to evade the ‘baddies.’ The tensions are well-maintained, and Mark Strong plays against type. Try also to imagine how the director would have interacted with Ms. Frank in making the film. This is why Cryptic Rock gives The Silent Hour 5 out of 5 stars.
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