The Silent Hourfollows Boston Detective Frank Shaw as he returns to duty after a career-altering injury leaves him with permanent hearing loss. He is tasked with interpreting for Ava Fremont, a deaf witness to a brutal gang murder, but the two quickly find themselves in an unexpected and dangerous situation. Cornered in a soon-to-be-condemned apartment building, it seems they have nowhere to hide while being hunted by the killers, who want to eliminate the witness.
Director Brad Anderson has had an extensive career as a director, being involved in television series such asPeacemaker,The Shield, andTitans, as well as films likeThe MachinistandVanishing of 7th Street.The Silent Hourcomes to theaters and will be available on digital October 11.
Watch An Exciting Trailer For Joel Kinnaman’s New Action Thriller The Silent Hour
Exclusive: Screen Rant debuts trailer for The Silent Hour, starring For All Mankind’s Joel Kinnaman, Sandra Mae Frank, Mekhi Phifer, and Mark Strong.
Screen Rantinterviewed Brad Anderson to discussThe Silent Hourand what drew him to the project. He also reveals what it was about the leads,Joel Kinnamanand Sandra Mae Frank, that made them such a great fit. Anderson talks about how everything comes together at the end of the movie, delivering a powerful message to audiences.
“That was the big challenge here. How do we keep the tempo and the pace of the movie, even though much of the time we’re reading subtitles?”
Screen Rant: What aboutThe Silent Hourmade you want to direct it?
Brad Anderson: I think it was just the how to create a genre movie like a thriller, or a cat and mouse chase type story, but also in a way in which you pull out one of your key tools of storytelling, which is sound. How do you do that and do it in a way where characters aren’t talking to each other as much as signing to each other. That was the big challenge here. How do we keep the tempo and the pace of the movie, even though much of the time we’re reading subtitles? But I think that was sort of the point in the story. We’re experiencing the world the way Frank, Joel Kinnaman’s character, is. We’re having to adapt our ears and sense the world the way he is. And then trying to make what seems to be a loss and turn it into an advantage.
That’s what the story is and how he ends up surviving and helping her. And she, of course, is helping him. I just love the dual collaborative journey that these two characters take. They’re both facing terribly bad odds in terms of being able to survive against these bad guys, but they have to embrace the thing that might be their weakest strength and make it their biggest, their strongest strength. I think that was, to me, very heartening and very uplifting in a way.
It’s always good when you have characters that are fighting the odds and struggling against all these obstacles and how they’re going to get through them, and you add hearing loss or deafness into the equation, and that ups the ante even more. And this movie does that.
Anderson knew Kinnaman from working together in the past, and Frank stood out to him immediately after her audition.
Screen Rant: Can you talk about bringing on Joel Kinnaman and Sandra Mae Frank? They are incredible together.
Brad Anderson: I’d worked with Joel Kahneman on a TV show back in the day, so we knew each other and we always wanted to collaborate again. So thankfully, he really enjoyed the script and jumped at the challenge of playing this kind of a character. He’s played cops before, numerous times, but not cops like this. Although he did play a character in a movie just prior to this where he also had a hearing loss, in the movie Silent Night, but he also really liked this concept of playing this kind of character and working with a deaf actress was interesting to him. So he was great.
And then Sandra. We auditioned several deaf actresses, and she was the one that popped for me most of all. She just has a great personality, and she’s got this charisma, yet she’s also, you can tell she’s like the character Ava. A character that is not just going to back down. She’s going to fight the odds and win the day. There’s not a lot of roles for deaf actresses, or deaf characters in general. So I think that she saw this as an opportunity to play a character who’s using her lack of hearing to her advantage in a thriller scenario. I think that was a reason that she jumped at it.
They just had great chemistry together, and we like them and want them to survive. That’s what you are looking for.
The Silent Hour Has A Powerful & Meaningful Message
“The thing that matters is family and supporting and loving the ones in your life, regardless of your own issues.”
Screen Rant: The final scene of the film is very emotional. Can you talk about the importance of including that, without spoilers?
Brad Anderson: To me, that summed up his acceptance. He’s sort of been in denial about his hearing loss. It’s getting worse and he has been told that ultimately, there might come a point where he can’t hear at all. He might be permanently deaf. I just think the ending, to me, was a way for him to show that he was okay with his new life, which was about to begin. And that the thing that matters is family and supporting and loving the ones in your life, regardless of your own issues. I love that little moment too, and I think it’s very sweet. It’s like a guy that has finally come to terms.
Screen Rant: I would love to see a sequel of Vanishing on 7th Street.
Brad Anderson: Good to know. Yeah, that would be fun, too.
More About The Silent Hour (2024)
Boston Detective Frank Shaw (Joel Kinnaman) returns to duty after a career-altering injury leaves him with permanent hearing loss. Tasked with interpreting for Ava Fremont (Sandra Mae Frank), a deaf witness to a brutal gang murder, they find themselves cornered in a soon-to-be-condemned apartment building when the killers return to eliminate her. Cut off from the outside world, these two strangers must lean on each other to outsmart killers they can’t hear coming for their only hope of making it out alive.
The Silent Hourcomes to theaters and digital on October 11.
The Silent Hour
Cast
The Silent Hour is directed by Brad Anderson and follows a hearing-impaired police detective who must protect a deaf murder witness from a group of criminals in her apartment building while working as an interpreter on the case.
