Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

trublu215 To start off, I have absolutely no knowledge of German cinema, however, The Silence is a film that made me want to get into German cinema. It is THAT good. The film follows the lives of people connected to a serial killer who rapes and murders young women. After fifteen years without a trace, the killer begins to kill again. As the film progresses, we follow the family of the victim, the police investigating and the killer himself. With every twist and turn this film goes on, it makes for a thoroughly enjoyable and emotionally taxing watch that you're bound to be talking about after the end credits roll. The film stars German actors who, besides a couple bouts of poor subtitle dialog, do an amazing job capturing the authenticity that goes into situations like this. Many films have been touching base on pedophilia and the abduction of children in the past. Such films as In Her Skin and Prisoners come to mind but The Silence is a film that does it in such a way that it gives humanity to all of its characters, even the killer. It's very rare that you're able to actually reason with a character so dark and vile, it truly makes you feel disgusted especially during some of the darker scenes such as a rape scene in the beginning of the film. What this film does beautifully is takes the darkest and most evil event that could happen in someone's life and captures it on screen but it doesn't glorify it. It shows how it truly is, an act of evil done by a despicable man, we don't see an up, close and personal sequence of the rape, we see it through tall grass. Its scenes like this that capture the essence of this film. Its dark, brutal and depressing but it is still a great film nonetheless that keeps you guessing until the very end. I highly recommend it.

sergepesic Orderly, tidy, more than slightly boring German suburbia. Decent, law abiding, disciplined people, or so it seems at first sight. "Silence", brilliant German movie about crime without punishment. Or at least without legal consequences for a horrendous deed. And such a perfectly fitting title for this film. There is a lot of silence among these people. Some of it comes from loneliness, some from lack of communication, some from shameful secrets. But above all hangs the silent scream of despair. Such heartbreaking bottomless despair. The one that stretches with endless time of grief, regret or just empty nothing. All, the guilty and the innocent suffocating without the end in sight. Amazing film.

pawebster Oh dear. Germany has produced quite a few films like this. They contain long, long silences, which are meant to be artistic and profound. In fact, the result is often boredom, and perhaps even worse than that, a lack of proper development of the situation, the characters and the plot. It's as if any German (or Swiss, in this case) director worth his or her salt must disdain anything that might smack of conventional, clichéd storytelling. Unfortunately, they just swap them for other clichés and become lethargic in the process. Apparently this film has been compared to the Killing (the Danish TV serial) and I can see some similarities - except that the Danes know how to combine the elegaic with interesting characters and a story that moves.It's a shame, because there are good actors in here, especially Möhring and Blomberg. The latter might overact a bit, but he is nevertheless compelling to watch. I can't recommend it.

georgep53 If you're in the mood for a dark, compelling police procedural "The Silence" is well worth seeing. In Germany 1986 an 11 year old girl is murdered while bicycling home. Years later the community must come to grips with a similar murder of another young girl and the realization that they have a serial killer in their midst. The police response consists of a bureaucratic, supervising detective primarily concerned with allaying public fears; a detective who commiserates with the victims' families but who's also struggling with the loss of his wife to natural causes and a retired detective anxious to not allow the killer to escape justice this time. Director Baran bo Odar does an excellent job of creating a chilling atmosphere that never slackens. The term "nail biter" may be overused but I feel it's entirely justified in this case. The evil depicted here seems all the more terrifying because it is so banal. Almost like a Nordic "Fargo" this community hardly seems as if a dark day would descend on it and yet the rustic fields and lakes yield horrors. The cast is first rate especially Ulrich Thomsen and Wotan Wilke Mohring. Katrin Sab gives a beautifully controlled performance as the mother of the original victim. Sebastian Blomberg is the detective who spends as much time fighting his own demons as working on the case.