{"id":4005,"date":"2024-09-14T14:51:16","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T14:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4005"},"modified":"2024-10-19T21:51:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T01:51:15","slug":"speak-no-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/09\/14\/speak-no-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Speak No Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Speak No Evil<\/strong> (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (some strong violence, language, some sexual content, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Watkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James Watkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tim Maurice-Jones\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 13, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Aisling Franciosi, Alix West Lefler, Dan Hough, Kris Hitchen, Motaz Malhees.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0Finally, all three parts of the Three Wise Monkeys proverb have been cinematically represented. See No Evil, a thriller starring Mia Farrow as a blind woman, came out in 1971. The 2006 slasher of the same name is completely unrelated. In 1993, Marlee Matlin played a deaf woman stalked by a dirty cop in the thriller Hear No Evil. Now we have Speak No Evil<\/strong>, an American remake of a Danish thriller that came out about two years ago. It took long enough; pity it wasn\u2019t worth the prolonged wait.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ve not seen the original Speak No Evil, which I understand is great, but I have a feeling we\u2019re looking at a situation similar to The Vanishing from more than 30 years ago. When the excellent 1988 Dutch thriller was remade in America, the makers changed the effectively bleak ending to a happier one where the hero triumphs and the villain pays for his sins. That\u2019s exactly what happens in Speak No Evil<\/strong>. And before you go screaming at me for dropping a spoiler, the trailer beat me to it. If you\u2019ve been to the cinema even once in the past few months, chances are you\u2019ve seen it. It\u2019s been running all summer before every movie. It spells out the whole thing. There are literally no surprises or unexpected developments.<\/p>\n

\u00a0This is where I find myself in something of a quandary. Assuming I\u2019m right about the changed ending, it\u2019s the best part of Speak No Evil<\/strong>. The rest of the film is a slow build to it. I get that writer-director James Watkins (The Woman in Black) is attempting to keep the audience in suspense, but it feels to me like he\u2019s just spinning his wheels until he\u2019s finally ready to lower the boom with a violent finale. It\u2019s cool when it finally happens, but it takes too long to get there.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The story centers on the Daltons, an American family currently living in London. Right away, you can tell they\u2019re just keeping up appearances. They\u2019re not a happy bunch. Family head Ben (McNairy, Halt and Catch Fire) is presently unemployed, the result of his company backing out of an agreement after he moved his family to the UK. His marriage to Louise (McNairy\u2019s HACF co-star Davis) is on the rocks for reasons made clear later on. Their preteen daughter Agnes (Lefler, Fire Country) has terrible anxiety issues. She\u2019s almost 12 and still carries her favorite stuffed bunny everywhere.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They\u2019re on holiday in Italy when they meet Paddy (McAvoy, Split) and his clan, much younger wife Ciara (Franciosi, The Nightingale) and uncommunicative son Ant (Hough). He explains his boy has trouble speaking due to being born with a tongue abnormality. The families seem to hit it off, but Louise still has reservations when Paddy invites them to their house in the countryside for a weekend stay. She relents when she realizes it might be good for their family to get away for a while. She couldn\u2019t be more wrong.<\/p>\n

\u00a0To say that Paddy and Ciara\u2019s behavior is cause for concern would be a gross understatement. There is definitely something wrong with these people, especially Paddy who tends to be rough on his son, both physically and mentally. They also exhibit inappropriate behavior like feigning oral sex while they\u2019re dining out. More than once, Louise says she wants to leave, but Ben doesn\u2019t want to be rude to their hosts. BIG MISTAKE! It turns out the Daltons haven\u2019t been friended but targeted.<\/p>\n

\u00a0To its credit, Speak No Evil<\/strong> is better than the garbage that\u2019s been polluting multiplexes these past few weeks, but that\u2019s not saying much. A blank screen is an improvement over the likes of The Crow, AfrAId and The Front Room. Speak No Evil<\/strong> is strictly mediocre. It\u2019s not terrible in any way, but it doesn\u2019t distinguish itself in any way either. It\u2019s slow and predictable not to mention frustrating. You sit there wondering why the Daltons don\u2019t just get the hell out of there. Why did they even accept such an invite from people they barely know? Of course, we already know why. Movies like this depend on characters that act like idiots and make every wrong move possible. There wouldn\u2019t be a movie if they had a shred of intelligence. Still, it\u2019s really annoying.<\/p>\n

\u00a0On the upside, McAvoy brings his A-game as the increasingly unhinged Paddy. Here\u2019s a guy who appears decent on the surface, but it\u2019s really a fa\u00e7ade concealing the monster lurking underneath. His true nature comes out in fits and starts making it all the more frightening. McAvoy is really carving out a niche for himself in the thriller genre. The rest of the cast, young Lefler in particular, turn in good performances even if Franciosi\u2019s character is somewhat underwritten. Sadly, all are underserved by the lackluster script and direction.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I was hoping Speak No Evil<\/strong> would be a good throwback to the 90s-era dangerous stranger thrillers like The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Unlawful Entry and Single White Female. I enjoyed those films back in the day. They were effective and fun, especially when watched with a Friday night audience. Speak No Evil<\/strong> misses the mark by a significant margin. It doesn\u2019t get good until the final 20 minutes, but this is where the phrase \u201ctoo little, too late\u201d comes into play. I\u2019m going to make an effort to watch the original. I have a feeling it\u2019s the better film.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speak No Evil (2024)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (some strong violence, language, some sexual content, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James Watkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James Watkins\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Tim Maurice-Jones\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 13, 2024 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, Aisling Franciosi, Alix West Lefler, Dan Hough, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Speak-No-Evil-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4005"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5278,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4005\/revisions\/5278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}