Silencer

Silencer

For all its sought-after action scenes, in truth, Timothy Woodward Jr.’s movie Silencer is an ambitious yet flawed film which does not invoke either displeasure or excitement only incredulity.

The action starts with a group of US Marines in Iraq. From radio calls to echoing “Copy that!” throughout the region, there is a general feel of pessimism which anticipates that “Call of Duty 4: The Movie” is about to play at any moment due to the quality of the video being through tinted glasses. But all these narration atleast seem in the background explaining details about our central character, Frank (portrayed by Johnny Messner of ‘Hostage.’) who appears to be a reluctant soldier.

Fast forward a decade later, his operation having sorely failed, Frank is residing in New Mexico alongside his girlfriend Cass (played by Nikki Leigh of ‘The Sand’) and her daughter, Shannon (portrayed by Kai Scarlett Williams of ‘American Violence’). With the military behind him and now working as a mechanic, the only bright spot in Frank’s memories is that he no longer has to think about the wife and children of the Iraqis he had killed.

Frank has been to prison at some point in the years that followed. We take him to have done mercenary work or contract killing of some sort. He has some history, maybe a blood oath with ex-con Lazarus (Robert LaSardo, “The Human Centipede 3”), who now works for local gang lord Lenny (Danny Trejo, “Machete Kills”) .

Frank trains Lenny’s daughter to drive a car, only for her to be killed in an accident. Lenny of course is frustrated and decides to seek out Frank to deal with the person responsible for this. This “one last mission” has unexpected turns that put Frank’s new family in danger. Events precipitate and culminate into a bloody confrontation between Lenny and his gang on the one hand and Frank on the other.

In other words, Silencer can be described as “Commando” ( it contains scenes where the hero infiltrates the evil Central American tyrant’s mansion), minus the rich cinematography and high production which made “Sicario” what it is. What I mean to say is New Mexico appears to have no power and instead uses a large number of candles to light their houses.

Eventually, Sean Mick’s first script bears no resemblance to the desolate beauty of Taylor Sheridan’s work. “One of us isn’t walking out of this alive,” Lenny says to Frank. “And since I have a gun, that could possibly be you.” Hold on, so Frank is going to walk away . . . from here, dead? At least it’s more along the lines of a Cormac McCarthy screech-inducing “The Counselor” screenplay.

Woodward Jr. has style but no story. Hence, the pace is way too slow for such a dry and worn out plot. It’s a C-movie trying to wow in the name of intelligence. Interestingly, there’s more shots of Frank drinking (or contemplating drink) than engaging in any activity; there are more shots of Frank recollecting violence than he engaged in violence against other people. It is one thing to have a sensitivity towards content, it is quite another to wallow in a narrative which is repetitive anyway.

The opening act seems so predictable and unoriginal as it constantly seeks to twist the slant of the overworked notion of the last job trope. The writer seems to have run out of ideal plot devices as he seems to resort to the monotonous cliché of the killer’s creed. Says the mafia Dawn, “But Frank! You can’t run away from your shadow.” To give him some credit, Lenny, we could assume he may escape your clutches if you weren’t such a psychotic blackmailer. One of the initial chapters features Frank sitting in a group therapy session for alcoholics and it is safe to assume the narrative so many viewers are waiting for is already being constructed in the tail end of the film.

Those bookends are great, and there are spare details of melee combat along with gunfights, and those scenes do well with an emphasis of realism rather than on innovative choreographies. Big picture, the editing works less well or maybe the fault is with the prose but in any event some key scenes seem to be poorly executed. For example, there was a moment when it appears that Shannon has been taken captive and we as the audience are muted into believing that’s a scenario we can work with. Later, I only knew the characters had crossed the border when they pulled out the Mexican map.

Furthermore, the storyline fails to correlate with the characterization given. Frank is tormented by his memories, specifically his memory of having killed an Iraqi family. This seems to make his decision to pursue Lenny rather puzzling, and painfully difficult for him to make. However, there is no dilemma of sorts in this case, at least not in terms of the action genre. Why should one hesitate to execute the evil drug lord, who blackmailed them, raped their wife and kidnapped their daughter? There is none, because it does not evoke the same emotions as the act of killing innocent people during a wartime situation.

The incredibly prolific Messner turned in a bizarre, wild-eyed performance whereas Trejo seems quite unqualified for such a depth role having lost his inner conflict, that of a grieving father. In truth, Nikki Leigh who was a former playmate, performs quite admirably, even if much of her intellectual emotion seems out of place. She fantasizes about an ideal life where Frank is not involved in the family’s violent activities only for her fantasies to disappear because after setting them free, he attempts to contain them, which only pulls her closer to him.

The struggle between genre clichés and lazily meaningful themes that damage the film is somewhat expected. For a film that bumbles which is apparently about the struggle to kill a character, Silencer is filled with too many cuts and quick fixes as if the film in its last few seconds decided to resettle back on its dumb trash origins. Thus, it is a film that does not appear to be breaking the rules, rather, it has found a way around them, something that in the eyes of an audience is particularly hard to digest.

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