First Look: The 'Ocean's Eight' Crew

Warner Bros. Pictures released the first image of Ocean's 8, which will hit theaters on June 8, 2018.

A new Oceans crew is ready for their close-up.

Warner Bros. Pictures released the first image of Ocean's 8, which will hit theaters on June 8, 2018.

The official plot synopsis:

In summer 2018, the tide will turn as (left to right) Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) attempts to pull off the heist of the century at New York City’s star-studded annual Met Gala. Her first stop is to assemble the perfect crew: Lou (Cate Blanchett); Nine Ball (Rihanna); Amita (Mindy Kaling); Constance (Awkwafina); Rose (Helena Bonham Carter); Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway); and Tammy (Sarah Paulson).

The plot signals Sandra Bullock's character as Debbie Ocean is a relative connected to George Clooney's Danny Ocean from the previous films.

Gary Ross (The Hunger Games) is directing from a screenplay he wrote with Olivia Milch.

Source : movie insider

WCW: Adesua Etomi

Tolulope Adesua Etomi

Adesua Etomi

Born: Tolulope Adesua Etimo Owerri, Imo,    Nigeria
Nationality: Nigerian
Alma mater: Queen's College, Lagos
University of Wolverhampton(B.A)

Occupation:Actress
Years active: 2004–present

Adesua Etomi is a Nigerian actress, In 2014, she starred in her first feature film, Knocking On Heaven's Door. She won the Best actress in a drama award at the 2016 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards for her role in Falling.

Early life and education.

She was born Tolulope Adesua Etomi in Owerri, a town in Imo State of South Eastern Nigeria to a soldier father and an engineer mother. Etomi is the youngest of three siblings. She is a native of Esan in Edo State, South-South Nigeria and her mother is Yoruba.

Career

Her film credits include Falling;a performance in Falling earned her the 2016 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Best Actress In A Drama Award.Others include; A Soldier’s Story by Frankie Ogar released in October 2015, InkBlot’s Out of Luck released in December 2015 and Lord Tanner’s Couple Of Days, Adesua Etomi has also starred in MTV's HIV/AIDS Edutainment show Shuga as Sheila and stars as undercover police officer; Amaka Obiora in Yemisi Wada’s police procedural drama series; LasGidi Cops, which debuted in June 2016 on Television.

HAS THIS IS US' MIGUEL ALWAYS HAD FEELINGS FOR REBECCA? HERE'S WHAT THE ACTOR SAYS

You wouldn't think that there would be many characters on NBC's This Is Us that inspire hate in the fanbase, and you'd be right. It turns out there is really only one character that the fans love to hate, and that is Miguel. Everyone who watches the show is wondering if he always had designs on his best friend's wife, seeing as how he married Rebecca after Jack died, and now actor Jon Huertas has weighed in on the controversy. It turns out he has a very different view of the, somewhat hinky, situation.

Miguel has never had feelings for Rebecca in that way in the past. Miguel is not jealous or envious of Jack having Rebecca, he's envious of what they have because he doesn't have that with Shelly. He loves Jack more than anyone. Other than Shelly, maybe. Miguel knows what Rebecca has done to improve Jack's life and his being. He would never have feelings for Rebecca like that in the past. I play it like, 'Don't be stupid, stay on track.' That's what I try to do with Miguel.

Well, well, well. Apparently, Jon Huertas doesn't believe that it's possible that Miguel had naughty romantic feelings for Rebecca back when he and Jack were paling around. To him, the only thing Miguel was interested in was the strength of the relationship that Rebecca andJack had, and wishing he had that kind of romance with his own wife, Shelly. Huertas' goal in playing the past version of Miguel, as he tells it, seems to be getting that point across and not veering into I-want-my-best-friend's-wife territory, since he feels that it's basically impossible thatfeelings like that are actually waiting to be uncovered in the past.

Jon Huertas may be firm in the belief that Miguel wasn't up to no good where Rebecca was concerned while Jack was alive, as he made clear in his talk with The Hollywood Reporter, but I'm not completely sure that his opinion will settle the fears of all the fans who have taken to an intense dislike (to put it mildly) of his character. I mean, let's face it, for a lot of people, marrying someone who was married to a good friend is a line you simply don't cross. Ever. That's the main reason so many This Is Us viewers are convinced Miguel must have had his eye on sweet, oblivious Rebecca for most (or all) of the time she was married to Jack.

It makes a lot of sense that Jon Huertas doesn't want to entertain the idea that Miguel is a creep who had the hots for his buddy's wife. He also revealed in the interview that he's only gotten some very broad strokes on the character from the creator, so, as an actor, why immediately jump to that sordid conclusion when there's no evidence to really support it yet? You can catch the unfolding Miguel-Jack-Rebecca drama when This Is Us airs Tuesdays on NBC.

HIRE A MAN

Synopsis :

 Hire A Man tells the story of a young lady (Zynnell Zuh) , who hires a man (Enyinna Nwigwe) to pose as her fiancé at a family event, after her younger sister announced her engagement.

Credits :
Directed by : Desmond Elliott
Produced by : Chinneylove Eze
Screenplay : writers ink, Chinneylove Eze

Cast:
Starring : Zynnell Zuh, Enyinna Nwigwe,
Ik Ogbonna, Desmond Elliott, keppy ekpeyong

Release date : February 24th

Box Office: ‘Rings’ Crawls Past ‘Split’ to Win Friday

PARAMOUNT

FEBRUARY 4, 2017 | 07:32AM PT

While “Split” may well win its third straight weekend at the box office, Paramount’s newcomer “Rings” took the top slot on Friday with $5.6 million in earnings from 2,931 locations. “Split” followed closely behind with $4.8 million from 3,373 theaters. Both films should finish the sleepy Super Bowl weekend in the $13 to $14 million range.

“Split,” directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring James McAvoy, has performed very well for Universal, Blumhouse and Shyamalan, who self-financed the title for less than $10 million. After three weekends in release, the psychological thriller should be on the brink of $100 million domestically.

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“Rings,” revives the franchise started by 2002’s “The Ring,” starring Naomi Watts, which was a remake of a 1998 Japanese horror film. It stars Matilda Lutz, Alex Roe, Johnny Galecki, Vincent D’Onofrio, Aimee Teegarden and Bonnie Morgan. F. Javier Gutierrez directed “Rings,” and Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald are producers. The horror sequel, which has a $25 million price tag, is also opening in 36 international markets this weekend.

During a slow Super Bowl weekend, “The Space Between Us” is acting especially sluggish. The the sci-fi romance made $1.4 million on Friday at 2,812 locations. Gary Oldman stars along with Asa Butterfield, Carla Gugino, and Britt Robertson. STX picked up the project from Relativity as that company went into bankruptcy, meaning its financial exposure was less than $3.7 million after foreign sales, tax credits, and co-financing deals are taken into account.

Robert De Niro’s comedy-drama “The Comedian,” from Sony Pictures Classics, made $323,000 at 848 locations on Friday. Oscar-nominated documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” opened at 43 locations and made $201,000.

Apart from the top two slots taken by “Split” and “Rings,” this weekend’s top five should also include the second week of “A Dog’s Purpose” and Oscar-contenders “Hidden Figures” and “La La Land.” The former two are targeting the $10 million range, which Lionsgate’s original musical is dancing toward $7 million. When counting international grosses, “La La Land” is expected to cross the $250 million milestone after Saturday’s numbers are counted.

FILED UNDER:

 Box OfficeRingsSplit

Source :Variety

Sarah Paulson to Star in Serial Killer Movie ‘Lost Girls’ for Amazon

ROB LATOUR/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

FEBRUARY 3, 2017 | 05:59PM PT

Hot off winning a SAG Award for “The People vs. O.J.Simpson,” Sarah Paulson has come on board AmazonStudios’ serial killer drama “Lost Girls.”

Documentarian Liz Garbus is making her narrative feature film directing debut on “Lost Girls.” Michael Werwie wrote the script, based on Robert Kolker’s 2013 nonfiction book about a mother searching for her missing daughter in Long Island and discovering the murdered bodies of four girls in 2010. Kolker’s book, published in 2014, details the world of online escorts and the search for a serial killer who is still at large.

Kevin McCormick and David Kennedy are producing through their Langley Park production company. Pamela Hirsch is executive producing.

Paulson won the SAG, Emmy and Golden Globe awards for her work portraying prosecutor Marcia Clark in the FX series “The People vs. O.J.Simpson: American Crime Story.” Paulson also stars in “Rebel in the Rye” with Nicholas Hoult, which premiered at Sundance.

Garbus directed two documentaries that received Oscar nominations — “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and “The Farm: Angola USA.” McCormick’s credits include “Gangster Squad,” “Arthur” and “The Lucky One.”

Paulson is also part of the ensemble cast of Warner Bros. “Ocean’s Eight,” starring Sandra Bullock, Anne Hathaway and Cate Blanchett. She’s repped by UTA.

 

 

FILED UNDER:

 Amazon Lost GirlsSarah Paulson

Source : Variety 

Wedding Party’ Fuels Record Nigerian Box Office Despite Ailing Economy

TORONTO INTL. FILM FESTIVAL

FEBRUARY 3, 2017 | 10:13PM PT

Security fears, a lingering recession, and continuing uncertainty surrounding a stalled reform agenda have made for tough times in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and second-largest economy. Across the country, consumers have felt the pinch as the currency has lost more than 50% of its value in the past year.

But while it might hardly seem like a time for celebration, that hasn’t stopped audiences from turning out in record-breaking numbers for “The Wedding Party,” a romantic comedy that’s spent seven weeks at the top of the box office and become the first Nigerian film to pass the 400 million naira (around $1.3 million) mark.

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“It has surpassed all our expectations,” says executive producer Mo Abudu. “It’s been an incredible ride.”

“The Wedding Party” capped a record-setting year for the Nigerian box office, which grossed 3.5 billion naira (around $11.5 million) in 2016, with nearly 30%  coming from local pics, marking the first time Nigerian films have crossed the billion naira threshold.

At a time of steady declines, it’s been a rare sign of resilience from the Nigerian economy.

“Cinema has become…a safe, fun, friendly outlet to ease the economic pressure,” says Kene Mkparu, CEO of Filmhouse Cinemas, which operates 11 theaters across Nigeria, and which co-produced “The Wedding Party” through its distribution and production arm, FilmOne. “It helps people deal with the challenges that we’re facing.”

The record-breaking B.O. is the latest hopeful sign that an industry built on the back of its low-budget Nollywood film biz – famous for slapdash storylines and straight-to-DVD releases – can mature into a cinematic powerhouse.

To succeed, Nigerian helmers face an uphill climb. The West African nation has just 28 cinemas servicing a population of nearly 180 million, though the number of screens has continued to rise since the first multiplex was built just over a decade ago.

The steady growth of the exhibition industry has in turn fueled a rise in the number of filmmakers who are upping the ante with big-budget, big-screen releases. “The mindset of a lot of producers is that they want to make films that go straight to cinema first,” says Mkparu.

Across the country, 50 local films had theatrical releases last year, an all-time high. Both literally and figuratively, says Mkparu, local filmmakers are starting to see the big picture.

“Historically, the Nigerian film industry has grown from television,” he says, noting how the industry’s propensity for cropped shots and extreme close-ups is suited to small screens. “Now they’re beginning to give a cinematic look and feel to their films.”

The results were on display in Toronto last year, when Lagos was featured in the festival’s annual City to City program. Among the eight films selected were many that would go on to have strong showings at the Nigerian box office, such as courtroom thriller “The Arbitration” and historical epic “76.”

But it would be City to City opener “The Wedding Party” that would make the biggest splash back home. Following its Toronto world premiere, the film arrived on Nigerian screens just weeks after comedian A.Y.’s “A Trip to Jamaica” had itself become the highest-grossing Nigerian film of all time.

Over the holiday season, despite stiff competition from the likes of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “The Wedding Party” continued to break records. Mkparu notes that the film’s success was just indicative of a broader trend, where “audiences are starting to choose Nigerian films as their first choice at the theater.”

Partly that owes to savvier filmmaking. While budgets have risen in recent years, so has an awareness that selling a film begins with scriptwriting and casting. “You can’t just wake up and say, ‘I’ve produced a film,’ and take a very ad hoc approach to how you promote it,” says Abudu.

Along with an aggressive social-media campaign and slick corporate tie-ins, the producers of “The Wedding Party” cast the film to appeal to a broad swath of a large, fractious country, going beyond the prime 18-35 demographic to target older audiences as well.

Ultimately, though, at a time of political and economic uncertainty, “The Wedding Party” might have succeeded because of a simple, powerful theme.

FILED UNDER:

 NollywoodThe Wedding Party

Source: Variety 

THE SCREENPLAY

Synopsis

THE SCREENPLAY  tells the tale of a female writer who has the weekend to write and deliver a screenplay to a client. Lost for time and ideas,Ochanya must deliver at all cost if not trouble beckons.

Credits
Directed by : Emmanuel Mang Eme

Produced by :Ada Nwogu, Emmanuel          Mang Eme

Screenplay : Francis Udom

Starring : Vicky Nwogu, Mercy Aigbe-Gentry, Eric Obinna, Ejike Ibedilo, Mike Ezurunonye

Release Date : 2017

Keanu Reeves to Star in Romantic Thriller ‘Siberia’

JOHN SALANGSANG/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

FEBRUARY 1, 2017 | 12:18PM PT

Keanu Reeves will star in the romantic thriller “Siberia” from director Matthew Ross.

IM Global is launching international sales at the European Film Market at the Berlin Film Festival. Producers are Stephen Hamel (“Passengers”) and Reeves through Company Films along with Gabriela Bacher of Summerstorm/Film House Germany.

IM Global will begin selling international markets at the Berlin Film Festival. WME represents domestic rights.

Filming is set to start later this year. Ross, who made his directorial debut with “Frank & Lola,” is helming from a script by Scott Smith based on a treatment by Hamel. Smith’s credits include “A Simple Plan.”

Reeves will portray an American diamond trader trying to sell blue diamonds of dubious origin to buyers in Russia. As the deal begins to collapse he falls into an obsessive relationship with a Russian cafe owner in a small Siberian town while colliding with the treacherous world of the diamond trade from which he is unable to extricate himself.

THE CONJURING : NUN SPINOFF FINDS A DIRECTOR

While director James Wan had been steadily establishing himself as a filmmaker to watch via hits like Sawand Insidious, it wasn’t until 2013’s The Conjuring that Wan was truly cemented as a top tier Hollywood presence. Made on a modest – for Warner Bros. – $20 million budget, The Conjuring proved to be both a critical and commercial phenomenon, earning over $300 million worldwide. This led to the quick production of a 2014 spin-off focused on the film’s creepy Annabelle doll, which hauled in $256 million on a $6.5 million budget, despite terrible reviews.

Last year saw the arrival of The Conjuring 2, a proper sequel to The Conjuring that once again starred Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and dramatized another allegedly true cases of demonic terror that they were called in to help with. Earning reviews nearly as positive as the original, Conjuring 2 was another box office smash, hauling in $320 million on a $40 million budget.

The Conjuring 2 also introduced fans to another Annabelle-style side villain, in the form of Valak, a powerful demon that took the form of a creepy nun in order to menace Ed and Lorraine. Following Annabelle’s lead, Warner Bros. quickly greenlit a spin-offfocused on Valak, titled simply The Nun. According to Deadline, The NUN has now found its director, U.K. filmmaker Corin Hardy.

Hardy first got on Hollywood’s radar with his debut short Butterfly in 2003, and had been mostly directing music videos before earning positive reviews from genre fans for his 2015 independent horror film The Hallow.Hardy is currently attached as director to the long-gestating remake of The Crow, starring Jason Momoa in the role made famous by the late Brandon Lee in 1994. With The Crow still in search of a new studio to call home – following the bankruptcy of Relativity Media –The Nun will most likely enter production first.

In a move likely to give pause to those who didn’t like Annabelle, that film’s writer Gary Dauberman has been hired to write the script for The Nun,alongside Wan. That isn’t really much of a surprise though, as he was also brought back for Annabelle 2, despite the original’s aforementioned terrible reviews. Dauberman appears to be becoming a favorite of Warner Bros., who also brought him on to write Andy Muschetti’s upcoming movie version of Stephen King’s IT. For fans’ sake, here’s hoping his work on Annabellewasn’t necessarily an indication of The Nun’s prospective quality.

We’ll let you know when The Nun gets an official release date.

Source: Deadline

Han Solo: Billy Dee Williams and Donald Glover Meet For Lunch

The young Han Solo film just began principal photography under the working title, Red Cup. For a project so seemingly ill-advised, it’s certainly doing a lot of things right. Disney hired directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the kings of ill-advised gems like The Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street to direct the project. Veteran Star Wars writer Lawrence Kasdan and his son are penning the script. The up-and-coming Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!) has been cast in the title role, with Woody Harrelson (The Hunger Games) and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) in major supporting roles. Perhaps most encouraging of all has been the casting of fan favorite, Donald Glover (Atlanta), in the role of the young Lando Calrissian.

Naturally, any new actor replacing a Star Wars legend is going have big shoes to fill, finding a comfortable balance between respecting the original performance and adding their own voice. Fortunately, the cast of the yet-untitled Star Wars anthology film seems keen to do their homework.

Just a month ago, fans spotted Alden Ehrenreich meeting with original Han Solo, Harrison Ford for lunch, presumably to get to know the man that he would be embodying in the upcoming film. Recently, Twitter Personality Just Loren posted an image of Donald Glover and original Lando, Billy Dee Williams having a very similar kind of meeting.

Fans can rest assured that Glover is taking the role seriously. He previously shared that “Lando’s a big deal. He’s the first toy I ever got… You want to live up to the expectation.” It’s encouraging to see that these new additions to the Star Wars universe are sparing no effort in making sure they understand the roles they are set to inhabit.

Glover tends to have a much more energetic vibe than Williams, whose own Lando was the king of suave. That said, the Lando we first meet in The Empire Strikes back was remarked upon by Han as having gone “respectable”with age. It makes sense that a younger Lando would be a bit more excitable and reckless, which Glover has played before while injecting his own brand of cool. Hopefully, his meeting with Williams will inform a faithful but unique interpretation for the new film.

Are you excited to see Glover hit the screen as Calrissian? Let us know in the comments section, and stay tuned to Martini MOVIE for updates on the young Han Solo movie as they hit.

Source: Just Loren (via Heroic Hollywood)

Peter Jackson’s Mortal Engines Casts Its Leads

Peter Jackson has proven his talent for bringing sprawling fantasy worlds to life, having been the man to finally bring J.R.R. Tolkien’s massive Lord of the Rings novels to the screen, not to mention Tolkien’s LOTR precursor The Hobbit. Now Jackson is setting his sights on another darkly fantastical literary world by tackling Mortal Engines, based on author Philip Reeve’s vision of a bizarre post-apocalyptic future where wheeled cities roam around the earth devouring resources and sometimes going to war.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy may have been a brilliant technical achievement, but the films would not have caught on with audiences had the right actors not been chosen for the lead roles. Mortal Engines now has cast a pair of important male roles and Jackson is hoping they’ll be as memorable as Elijah Wood and Sean Astin in LOTR.

According to Variety, Mortal Engines will roll forward with Robbie Sheehan (Fortitude) and Ronan Raftery (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) in the cast. Sheehan reportedly will have a lead role while Raftery will take on a supporting part. Production starts in New Zealand this spring (of course it’s in New Zealand, this is a Peter Jackson movie) with Jackson producing and also co-writing the script (which he’s been working on for awhile) along with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, and Christian Rivers directing for Universal. A synopsis of the story:

“Earth’s cities now roam the globe on huge wheels, devouring each other in a struggle over diminishing resources. On one of these massive Traction Cities, Tom Natsworthy has an unexpected encounter with a mysterious young woman from the Outlands, who will change the course of his life forever.”

Robbie Sheehan will be a busy young man for awhile, with Mortal Enginesadded to his slate in addition to the fantasy film Mortal from The Autopsy of Jane Doe director Andre Ovredal, Dean Devlin’s Bad Samaritan starring David Tennant and the Aussie comedy Three Summers. Two additional films of Sheehan’s, Ari Gold’s Song of Sway Lakeand Devlin’s Geostorm, are both in post-production. Ronan Raftery has the Harry Potter prequel Fantasic Beastsunder his belt, in addition to the war drama Siege in Jadotville co-starring Jamie Dornan.

If Mortal Engines takes off, Sheehan and Raftery can look forward to appearing in three more movies based on Reeve’s YA series, which also includes the books Predator’s Gold,Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain. Jackson, of course, famously had totake over directing the three Hobbitmovies after Guillermo del Toro dropped out, but this time around the filmmaker is getting to really sit back and just write and produce while someone else does the hard work of grinding out footage day-after-day.

Casting the lead in a big-budget fantasy epic is always a tricky affair, but if Sheehan is as good as people seem to think he is — he is getting a lot of work these days — then he should be able to carry the load. Hollywood has cooled on YA properties after lukewarm box office returns for theDivergent series among others, butMortal Engines sounds like it could be imaginative and visually stunning enough to break the YA curse.

LIAM NEESON WILL FIGHT CRIMINALS WITH A SNOW PLOW IN HIS NEXT THRILLER, AND WE ARE SO ON BOARD

Over his nearly four decade-long acting career, Liam Neeson has proven himself to be a versatile performer, be it with dramas likeSchindler's List or comedies like A Million Ways to Die in the West. That being said, he's been cemented for a long time as one of Hollywood's biggest badasses, building an impressive reputation off action movies and thrillers. Even in his mid-60s, Neeson is all too willing to play characters who have the necessary skills to swiftly eliminate his foes. Today it was announced he'll keep that streak going with what could be one of his weirdest projects yet, titledHard Powder.

Described by Variety as a "Rocky Mountains-set action revenge thriller," Hard Powder will star Liam Neeson as Nels, an "uptight" snow plow driver who is awarded the "Citizen of the Year" prize but the folks in his Colorado ski town. When his son is murdered by a local drug lord, Nels will channel his fury and use the heavy machinery at his disposal to exact vengeance and dismantle the drug lord's operation. In the process, he'll ignite a turf war between a Native American mafia boss and "The Viking," a vegan gangster (seriously) who wears expensive suits, drives in a Tesla and loves to murder in cold blood. All this insanity will culminate in a final showdown that's guaranteed to kill almost all the participants.

Studiocanal, the group behind Hard Powder, described Liam Neeson's character as being "a hero in the mold of Clint Eastwood in Unforgivenor Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Director Hans Petter Moland also stated that the movie will aim for a tone and archetypes similar to Get Shorty andOut of Sight. Frank Baldwin wrote the script, and Michael Shamberg is attached as a producer. Neeson has previously worked under StudioCanal on 2014's Non-Stop.

In the collection of Liam Neeson's action-heavy movies, Hard Powdersounds like it will be one of the crazier ones. We're used to seeing him dispatch enemies in more conventional ways, i.e. with gun or fists, but taking down drug dealers and other nefarious figures with snow machinery?! I'm both perplexed and excited to see this go down. I'm picturing this story as a frantic blend of the Taken movies and The Grey, but if Neeson's past work is any indication, audiences are guaranteed a lot of thrilling and gripping moments in Hard Powder.

We'll keep you updated on how Hard Powder is progressing as more news comes in, but for now, you can see Liam Neeson acting alongside Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield inSilence, and his 2017 appearances include Felt (where he'll play real life FBI agent Mark Felt, a.k.a. Deep Throat) and The Commuter.

Silence

Silence has been ruminating in Martin Scorsese's head for over 25 years now. With such an investment, and with Silence clocking in at a mammoth 161 minutes, there was every chance that under the hands of a more tempestuous filmmakers it could have suffered.

But it speaks volumes about the mastery of Marty that he allowsSilence to unfold in a patiently rhythmic fashion that's perfectly suited to the story at hand. In doing so, with Silence, Martin Scorsese has created a mesmeric séance of a film, that's undoubtedly challenging, and even verges on being a slog in places. At the same time, though,Silence is precisely epic, drenched in passion and beauty, rewarding, and a reminder that there are many arrows to Martin Scorsese's bow.

Set in the 17th century, Silencefollows two Jesuit priests Sebastiao Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Francisco Garupe (Adam Driver) as they trek to Japan to try and locate Father Cristovao Ferreira (Liam Neeson), who is believed to have renounced his faith. But as two of his former pupils, Rodrigues and Garupe don't believe that he has committed apostasy. Japan has outlawed Christianity, though, meaning that the pair have to remain hidden from the local government, while they still provide service to local Christians, and try to begin their long trek to locate Ferreira.

Silence is the anti-Wolf Of Wall Street. It doesn't need to scream for attention. Instead it meditates. It hums, and lives and plays off the expressions and pain and anguish that are bubbling in its characters. With such nuanced portrayals required, Scorsese assembles a stunning ensemble to play out his tale.

A gaunt Adam Driver brings an understandable nerve and tension to the film as Garupe, and is a worthy foil to Andrew Garfield's Rodrigues. Meanwhile Liam Neeson provides a flailed measurement as Ferreira, Yosuke Kubzuka is devilishly evasive as Kichiiro, Shinya Tusamoto is rousingly stoic as the defiant Mokichi, and Issey Ogata showcases a Machiavellian calm and workmanlike demeanor in his torturing of the Christians as Emperor Hirohito.

Andrew Garfield is the beating heart of Silence, though, as well as our eyes and ears through the meandering tale. While Rodrigues is just as earnest as Eduardo Saverin (The Social Network), Peter Parker (Amazing Spider-Man), and Desmond Doss (Hacksaw Ridge), he's tested and pushed much, much further. This brings out a rage, intensity, sorrow, regret, and anguish in Garfield which he displays incrementally and in a stunningly controlled fashion, as he is also able to get these emotions across without it impeding the rest of his performance.

But, for better and ever so slightly for worse, Silence is all Scorsese, though. Unlike the director's most recent outings (The Wolf Of Wall Street, Hugo, Shutter Island, The Departed), which have used excess, extravagance, mystery, and violence to entrance an audience, Silence is much more contemplative and restrained, as the story ekes out. The last Scorsese film that Silence is comparable to is Kundun, while there are shades of The Age Of Innocence, The Last Temptation Of Christ, andAlice Doesn't Live Here Anymoreabout how anti-Marty it is.

Unfortunately, because it is directed by Martin Scorsese, you're constantly waiting for a tubthumping moment akin to his past movies to arrive, and it takes you out of the film. Instead, Scorsese has fun in the 17th century, Eastern, naturalistic setting, while its violence and torture is much more drawn out, and while they never get under your skin, the implication and toil impacts its characters. BecauseSilence never sets out to include such a vociferous scene, it should become more and more rewarding on repeated viewings, while its occasional drag should dissipate then, too.

Silence doesn't challenge Scorsese's best, and its elongated approach, meditation of faith, and exploration of unanswerable questions won't be for everyone. But it's a stark and though-provokingly probing footnote to one of the finest directorial careers in the history of cinema, and proof that even when he changes pace, Martin Scorsese is still formidable.

RATING: 

Reviewed by :Gregory Wakeman