Heralded as a German rival for "The Killing", I expected more from this still unsettling subtitled crime drama. Centring on two identical murders some 23 years apart, while we're clearly shown the perpetrator of the first murder, the identity of the second slayer is kept from us until close to the end, but isn't difficult to work out. The film I suspect fancies itself more as a psychological analyses of disturbed individuals rather than a more conventional murder mystery, but fails largely due to inconsistencies in the writing especially the numerous unlikely alliances made by various parties in the narrative. There's an awful lot of pairing which goes on, on all sides of the fence but many seem too unrealistic and unnatural to convince, especially the key one involving the murderer and his abettor but also the disturbed, recently widowed detective and his obviously pregnant partner not to mention the retired but still rebellious detective from te first murder landing up in the bed of the first victim's mother. I especially didn't get the heart-on his-sleeve widower detective who resembles a slightly deranged Daniel Day Lewis and who seemingly is given largesse by his superior to openly question and indeed harangue the latter's orders but who of course cracks the case with an observation I got to before he did himself. The film dwells at length on the grief processes of sundry parties to the extent that you feel it forgets it should primarily be dealing with the emotive subject of child-murder. Also I am fast growing tired of those several aerial-perspective tracker shots plus I felt just too many scenes were unlikely not to mention unbelievable. I want greatly struck by the acting either so that in the end it just came across to me as an over-earnest, over-ambitious but ultimately over-dull police-procedural
Review of The Silence
