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Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura were all I needed to press play. Their past work had earned my trust. Add Ving Rhames - the legendary Marsellus Wallace himself - and this felt like a sure thing. Episode one delivered: a mystery wound tight, the pace relentless, the action precise. It pulled me in and refused to let go.

But somewhere around the third episode, the wheels started to wobble. The story lost its focus, drifting from thread to thread, unsure where it was heading. The sharp edges dulled. The bite vanished. Momentum collapsed into a slow, heavy crawl.

By the time the final episode arrived, whatever tension the series had built was long gone. Answers were tossed out carelessly, long after anyone cared to ask the questions. A promising start crumbled into a tedious, disappointing finish.

They never saw it coming - not the tension, not the silence, not the quiet decay of civility. "Speak No Evil" doesn't just rely on jump scares or gore. It twists the knife slowly, deliberately, in scenes so socially awkward they feel weaponized. From the first frame, the discomfort creeps in. And just when you think it can't get worse, it does - because the characters don't escape the tension. They feed it. They nod, smile, and swallow every instinct to speak up, and in doing so, they drag you down with them.

Mackenzie Davis nails the role - her expressions alone are a clinic in controlled discomfort. Watching her face feels like watching a car crash in slow motion: you brace, flinch, and still can't look away. James McAvoy, meanwhile, doesn't just play unsettling - he exudes it. There's something about his performance that feels like Russell Crowe on the edge, a man too controlled to be safe.

This isn't "Silence of the Lambs," but it knows what it's doing. There are echoes of "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle," that slow domestic unraveling where the horror isn't just what happens - it's how long it takes to happen. The burn here is slow, sometimes too slow, but it's intentional. And if you've got nothing queued up, this one's worth a watch. Just don't expect relief.

I'll watch anything with Adrien Brody. That's my bias. So when I saw "The Brutalist" - Brody, Holocaust-adjacent, second Oscar win - I was in. That's all I knew going in. No trailers. No spoilers. Just a gut feeling and six bucks on my streaming account.

The movie is slow burn. No, slower than that. Obscure filmmaking - quiet, atmospheric, every scene humming like there's a secret just offscreen. You lean in, waiting for the moment it snaps. You wait. And wait. Intermission hits at one and a half hours. One and a half. It's over three hours long.

I stayed because I was hooked on the promise. Something dramatic had to be coming, right? Some twist, something. But when it finally lands, it's... muted. Like a firecracker that fizzled instead of exploding. Tension? There. Payoff? Meh.

That said, Brody delivers - moody, restrained, magnetic. Guy Pearce is sharp too. I didn't connect much with the wife. Something about her felt... one-dimensional. Like she was written into the fog but never stepped out of it.

Bottom line? I finished it because it's Brody. And I paid for it. But if you're going in expecting fireworks, bring a warm drink and a blanket. You'll be waiting a while.