Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

If you are a history buff perhaps you can suffer through this boring movie. Watching it at 2x its still slow. Just a dud in plain English. The book is slightly better, but again you have to be fascinated by the subject. If not, its of little interest and for many a waste of time. Scorcese noted he wanted to put this movie together for 20 years. I think he should have waited longer. Its garbage!

I saw Silence on TV. To be brief, the movie is about two, young, 17th century Catholic priests venturing to Japan to find a lost priest. Apparently Catholic priests were not held in high esteem in those days in Japan because the two priests had to go into hiding.I almost turned off the movie at about the half hour point. It was slow going. Eventually it became clear that the priests, and other native Christians, must forsake their religion or die of the Buddhists. To show the priests and the other Christians that they meant business, there was a lot of torturing going on.Anyway, enough. If the viewer is a devout Christian, particularly a Catholic, then the film might have some meaning. It might even be inspirational. To the average joe, it will probably come off as kind of strange. In fact, the inspirational parts for some viewers might seem to other viewers like the actions of the foolish. I was in the latter camp.

This review contains spoilers.Silence is directed by Martin Scorcese and stars Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver. The movie follows two Portuguese priests in search of their mentor in Japan. Their once respected mentor has rejected the Catholic faith and is now living with a Japanese identity. The two priests travel to Japan to find the hidden Christians and must come to terms with their faith.As a non-religious person, I found Silence to be incredibly thought provoking. The movie grapples with the heavy theme of faith. The movie centers heavily around Andre Garfield's character. He begins the movie realizing his mentor, played by Liam Neeson, has rejected Catholicism and assumed a Japanese identity. It is here that the movie begins the test of faith. Throughout the movie, Catholicism is called into question on Japan. The peasants have their own interpretation of the faith, and ultimately must apostatize in order to save their lives. Those that do renounce the faith may still cling to it in their hearts. The movie asks the question is one still a believer even after forcibly renouncing their faith? It is this question that persists throughout the movie. All of the characters that play a major role are pivotal to this theme. Two of the important scenes comes with the debate with the grand inquisitor and the former mentor. The discussion with the grand inquisitor was an interesting perspective on how both of the characters viewed Christianity. The re-connection with the mentor forced the character to see how Christianity is really treated in Japan by the hidden devout. It forces the viewer and the character to come to terms with how radical the interpretations became with the Japanese peasants' interpretations. It also showed that certain concepts would not work in Japan and how the inquisitor may have been right.Aside from the plot and themes, the directing, editing, acting, and cinematography are all top notch in this movie. This is a gorgeous movie that shows the time and effort that Martin Scorcese put. Andrew Garfield deserves much praise for his fantastic portrayal of Father Sebastian Rodrigues. The Japanese actors do a great job with their foreign accent. The movie shows the age and time period of the movie incredibly well with sets and costumes that appear authentic to the period. The only downside to this movie is perhaps its length. For some audiences, the movie could be repeating the points too much and it can be a slow beginning.Overall I would recommend Silence to any audience member that is a fan of Martin Scorcese or a fan of the themes of faith. The movie took much care to show the struggles of faith in the face of oppression.

Silence is a beautiful, yet grueling story about a priest going through great trials of pain that test his faith. A search for a apostatized Father turns into a search for God that transcends religion due to how personal Scorsese portrays . The hope and faith that the Japanese people show towards Andrew Garfield lets me feel the beauty of being and warmth of being alive. Yet the impossibility of the task of the Japanese to truly understand the religion and the hatred shown towards priests by the Japanese rulers shows the division between what is felt within the self and the reality of the external world. Recognizing this division and accepting it is a maturation that Neeson and Garfield's characters had to go through hell to understand. The worst parts of life on Earth consistently cause doubt in whether or not the most nebulous and beautiful tendencies of being human are real or not. Such concepts have definitely been explored before, but never as organically as with the pious manner in which Silence is portrayed. Before viewing Silence, I didn't know it was really possible to so subtly and wonderfully tell a story transcendent amongst all religions and all people around the world through religious figures, but Scorsese did it. The film's setting swims through bouts of fog, warmth and cold nothingness, mystically affecting the mood of the film. Silence is a challenging film to watch, but pays off like nothing else. The struggle of Andrew Garfield's character through the brutality of Japan is an extreme representation of the burden beared being a human on Earth. Witnessing death for ridiculous reasons, pain, starvation and distance all due to such trivial desires and misunderstandings. In God's Silence throughout the Fathers' immense struggle, they found their Lord within them the whole time, but absent externally. This discovery was a haunting reckoning, but it showed them how no one can carve the world in their vision, and that in doing so will drive a person mad. However unfortunate, the aspects of existence as shown in Silence are a part of human nature, and the kind of silence that Garfield and Neeson's characters maintain throughout the rest of their lives is the human equivalent to the burden Jesus bore on the cross. It's carrying the pain that's inherently going to be felt by traversing life on Earth, and realizing all that can be done is to keep what is felt within them, and express it in whatever ways possible.