Patriots Day & Silence - Reviews

"Patriots Day" - Director Peter Berg makes up for his disappointing true story effort in "Deepwater Horizon" by delivering this time out in "Patriot Day" a brilliantly executed highly emotional punch in the gut true story of the events surrounding the 2013 terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon. 

Without a single wasted moment or scene, nor a shred of Hollywood "feel good" embellishment, this film is a by the book, moment to moment, viscerally intense harrowing story from beginning to end. And in addition to its solid direction, the film also gives a bird’s eye view without any burdensome technical gibberish, the forensic side of the investigation as it parallel tracks the story of the human physical pursuit on the ground by local police and their dogged, focused determination to apprehending the two suspects.

Normally for me films like "Patriot Day" (by its construct a mainstream conventional film) more often than not can occasionally get bogged down with momentary opportunistic needless emotional clichés. Not this one, it stays diligently committed to its purpose of creating a sense of dramatic urgency in every frame.  Officially released in 2016, Patriot Day’ is one of the best films I have seen this year.

4.00 Stars

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“Silence” – Directed by the great Martin Scorsese, “Silence” is the tale of two Christian in missionaries (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) who face the ultimate test of faith when they travel to Japan in the 1600’s to search of their missing mentor (Liam Neeson) at a time when Christianity was being outlawed and their presence forbidden with the possibility of death at every turn.

Scorsese never disappoints me and with his latest effort, he manages to tell a story of both shocking exquisite human spiritual beauty and shocking human brutality under the blanketed question of how important is a person’s spiritual faith is? What depths would one go to never apostatize  -  renouncing one’s religious beliefs – principles?

Officially released in 2016 and running 2:45, the film starts out slow to eventually achieving some very powerful dramatic moments. But more than that, “Silence” uniquely captures the need for a basic understanding of other cultures forms and ideas of what the "truth” is. But furthermore, I found "Silence" overall to be a fascinating and compelling story about core human spiritually, faith and beliefs. Specifically the Catholic faith and the priest during the period of the 1600s who were ever committed to God and their faith, even to their own possible deaths by remaining devout to religious moral principles and tenets, all the while incased in the mysterious backdrop of a male dominated Japanese Buddhist culture.

3.75 Stars