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Silent Fall (1994)
Rate:
4
Viewed:
6/24
6/24:
Sherlock Holmes once said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Hence, I thought the boy's mother did it from the get-go, and so there it is. They say she's his "sister"? Balderdash. What a
manipulative movie Silent Fall is. The only reason why it came to this is that the crime scene was barely explained.
All I asked is, "What the hell happened?" That being said, I'm speaking of the preliminary findings. But there's almost
nothing that's furnished to me except for the stupid paper that showed the location of the stab wounds. Wow, amazing
stuff...not.
Two things must happen given the appearance of the crime scene, and this is as common sense as it gets. When a person stabs a body
over and over with a butcher knife, especially in a fit of rage, her hand will accidentally come down on the blade of the
knife, thus cutting herself, due to hitting a bone. Then, the same hand will move back to the handle and keep going,
regardless. That means...what? The knife wounds have to be visible on the boy's mother's hand as confirmed by the paper
which showed stab locations on the chest. Try doing that on the breastplate which is pretty tough to go through with a
knife.
The other is the large amount of blood all over the room which is to say there will be red footprints on the carpet. If
they find them matching only the boy and his mother, then that means...what? The mother did it. Forget the kid; he isn't
strong enough to take on the old man in spite of the most ridiculous display ever shown in movie history which is the
Herculean strength to pull out an industrial-grade doorknob.
Anyway, Richard Dreyfuss and J.T. Walsh are fine. They tried to make the show interesting for a while, but I was simply
overcome by the logic faults. Despite looking the part, Linda Hamilton and John Lithgow are ultimately wasted. Speaking of
the therapist's wife, where was she the whole time during the fateful night when he was rendered paralyzed on purpose? Liv
Tyler is awful and manages to give away the lifetime blueprint of her acting ability which is, to say, zero.
Since I had worked with plenty of kids with autism, I didn't believe the boy at all. The therapist stated, "Nobody knows
what autism is." Double balderdash. Usually, there's a degree of intellectual disability involved. Since the child actor
faked a lot of autistic behaviors, it's impossible for me to tell, but one thing is for sure: his voice would've never
appeared out of his volition.
All in all, Silent Fall may seem credible because of Richard Dreyfuss, but make no mistake: it's a very
manipulative movie.