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When Duncan Jones was doing press for his excellent “ Moon ,” he told me that he already knew what his follow-up would be, a passion project called “Mute,” which he said would be to his first film as “ Blade Runner ” was to “ Alien .” He also mentioned that the film would take place in the same universe as “Moon,” and that he hoped to make it soon. As often happens in Hollywood, hope is deferred, and Jones would make the great “ Source Code ” and the misfire “ Warcraft ” before returning to the ambitious project with a silent leading man. “Mute” premieres on Netflix today and it’s an interesting chapter in the company’s onslaught of sci-fi entertainment in recent months, including “ Bright ,” “ The Cloverfield Paradox ,” and “Altered Carbon.” Sadly, Jones’ passion has not made it to the screen in a way that’s likely to make viewers feel the same excitement he had about the project so many years ago.

“Mute” opens with an accident. An Amish child is horribly injured, and his parents refuse the surgery that could have saved his ability to speak. Cut forward a few decades to an almost cyberpunk future that looks like a blend of anime inspirations, “Blade Runner,” and the kind of thing Jones likely doodled in a notebook when he was bored in school. The whole aesthetic of “Mute” has a “teen fantasy” vibe to it from the tech gadgets that populate this version of Berlin to the weird sex robots and fetishes occasionally highlighted. This vision of the future is more colorful than Ridley Scott ’s but it was clearly built on the template of his landmark film.

In this city of hustlers, we meet Leo Beiler ( Alexander Skarsgard ), the adult version of the Amish kid from the opening scene. He works at an adult entertainment club with a waitress named Naadirah ( Seyneb Saleh ), whom Leo is dating. Jones takes his time establishing their relationship as a loving, sweet one—Skarsgard can convey a great deal of affection through only his eyes—but it’s also clear that Naadirah has a secret. Meanwhile, we meet a couple of American surgeons named “ Cactus ” Bill ( Paul Rudd , sporting a soon-to-be legendary mustache) and Duck ( Justin Theroux ). They perform surgeries for criminal enterprises and Bill sulks his way around Berlin. He too clearly has a secret. Maybe it’s related to Naadirah’s? And then Leo’s girlfriend disappears, and our mute hero does whatever it takes to find her.

Jones seems to embrace the noir roots of “Mute”—there’s a poster for “ The Blue Angel ” in one of the rooms and “the missing girl” is a classic noir set-up—but his piece doesn’t have nearly the atmosphere it needed to make the genre connection work. The production design is shockingly hollow, without a sense of world-building. It’s almost as if Jones and his team were too hesitant to just lean into their influences and so worked too hard to set their design apart, but that makes for inconsistencies and unengaging visuals. It’s perfectly fine to lean into a classic aesthetic like “Blade Runner”—“Altered Carbon” does so effectively—but don’t go halfway.

Viewers likely won’t complain too much about the film’s look (although its design failures will register subconsciously), but they will notice that there’s almost no real sense of danger in this world, and so the stakes don’t seem high enough to care about what happens to anyone. The biggest problem comes down to pacing. The movie takes too long to go anywhere , and so it’s the kind of movie that you get an hour into before you realize that you don’t care about what’s happening. It doesn’t help that Rudd/Theroux and Skarsgard feel like they are in different movies tonally, and the former is more interesting. Skarsgard isn’t bad but Jones never quite broke how to convey his story without dialogue and so he seems more comfortable in the other one. And Rudd, as he often is, is the best thing about the film, finding a sleazy register he doesn’t often use as an actor, which makes the movie unbalanced and causes it to sag a little when it goes back to Leo’s quest.

Ultimately, “Mute” is a mishmash of ideas in search of a movie. Jones is clearly an ambitious and interesting filmmaker. He’ll get over this misfire and possibly even complete what was once proposed as a loosely-connected trilogy. I hope it doesn’t take as long for that one to get to viewers as it did with “Mute” because it doesn’t seem like the delay did this project any favors.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Mute (2018)

126 minutes

Alexander Skarsgard as Leo

Paul Rudd as Cactus Bill

Justin Theroux as Duck

Duncan Jones

Writer (story by)

Michael Robert Johnson

Cinematographer

Barrett Heathcote
Laura Jennings
Clint Mansell

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Watch Mute with a subscription on Netflix.

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Visually polished but narratively derivative and overall muddled, Mute is a would-be sci-fi epic whose title serves as an unfortunate guide to how it might be best enjoyed.

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Film Review: ‘Mute’

Though undeniably dazzling in the visual department, 'Moon' director Duncan Jones' gimmicky future noir has nothing interesting to say.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

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'Mute' Review: The Sound Isn't the Problem in Latest Netflix Dud

Got an old screenplay in your bottom drawer that’s been rejected by practically everyone in town? Now’s your chance: Netflix seems to be greenlighting second-rate “content” like cinema was going out of style (and if the company’s stream-at-home strategy succeeds, it just might). The latest beneficiary is “Moon” director Duncan Jones , who dusted off a 15-year-old idea, attached a few name actors, and delivered the latest disappointing Netflix Original with alliterative “ Mute ,” an over-designed but otherwise uninspired slice of sci-fi noir — a stock missing-persons mystery in which a wordless bartender goes searching for his girlfriend through the sketchy near-future Berlin underworld.

It’s an old trope, but movies in which characters are defined by the fact that they don’t speak almost inevitably lead to scenes in which they finally say something (à la Paul Dano’s long-repressed F-bomb in “Little Miss Sunshine”). “Mute” opens with a badly injured boy floating in a lake, bleeding from half a dozen deep gashes to his neck — the result of a gruesome run-in with a motorboat propeller.

Young Leo is Amish, and though he’s rushed to the hospital in time to save his voice, his parents decline the operation. And so he grows up a freak — although it’s odd to feel that way toward anyone played by Alexander Skarsgård, who’s too darn handsome to be an outcast, and whose dopey relationship with blue-haired cocktail waitress Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh) seems to lack a lot more than just words.

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To be honest, Leo’s Amish identity is a far more interesting characteristic than his voicelessness, especially in a movie that appears to have lifted its gorgeous, neon-lit future-noir aesthetic from “Blade Runner.” Here’s a man who seems to have stepped from another time — tall, blond, and awkward, dressed in coarse, hand-sewn suits, who sketches and whittles in his spare time — against an ultra-modern cityscape, trying to navigate his technology-averse traditions amid so many holographic signs, flying cars, and voice-controlled vending machines. (The most intriguing touch is an old-fashioned flat-screen TV, on which Sam Rockwell makes an amusing cameo as his “Moon” character — accompanied by a dozen or so clones.)

Production designer Gavin Boquet, the MVP and master world-builder of the three “Star Wars” prequels, has crafted an eye-tickling upgrade on modern-day Berlin (visually, one of Europe’s least interesting capitals, whose delights tends to be hidden underground and in dark corners), and yet, despite his many imaginative embellishments, we’ve seen cities like this countless times on screen. What we’ve never witnessed is how a Luddite (or “tech-tard,” in the film’s crude parlance) copes with such innovation, setting up intriguing vignettes in which Leo learns to drive a car, uses a smartphone, and takes his first selfie — as well as action scenes in which he fights with a hand-carved bedpost (probably against his religion, but a nice alternative to shooting laser blasters, or however desperate boyfriends usually manage their frustration in movies like this).

One night, Naadirah comes home with something to tell Leo. No, she’s not leaving him, she assures him. “Then nothing else is important,” he writes in a notebook (his principal way of communicating). She makes him tea, they have weird sex in his garage, and then she leaves him. Without dialogue to reveal the type of man he might be, nothing in the “Mute” screenplay (which Jones co-wrote with Michael Robert Johnson) suggests that Leo is especially bright, resourceful, or in any way equipped for detective work. And yet, he single-mindedly blunders forth, like Donkey Kong in search of his princess.

By contrast, Naadirah immediately appears to be a fascinating character, full of secrets and internal conflict, though she disappears almost as quickly, leaving a handful of abrasive, unfunny sketch-balls to do most of the talking in “Mute.” Top of the foul-mouthed list are two off-putting American ex-military surgeons known as Cactus Bill ( Paul Rudd , super-scuzzy in Hawaiian shirts and horseshoe ’stache) and Duck (Justin Theroux), who run shady operations on the side. Naadirah’s boss Maksim (Gilbert Owuor) seems to have his fingers in all kinds of black-market dealings, while punky, pan-sexual co-worker Luba (Robert Sheehan) moonlights as an escort in Berlin’s least kinky bordello — so tame that Cactus regularly drops his daughter there to be babysat.

Prodded along by a series of text messages from his new phone, Leo seems thunderingly dense about what happened to Naadirah, although “Mute” makes a grievous error in its choice of actors to play the villain, making the film’s climactic stretch a deeply unpleasant experience for everyone — the audience, the hero, and, above all, the bad guy, who suffers perhaps the most sadistic comeuppance of any villain in recent memory (of which a traumatic blow to his vocal chords is just the beginning). As if that’s not twisted enough, the movie serves up an unseemly pedophilic subplot before finally giving Leo a chance to break his silence.

What is Jones trying to say with “Mute”? One would hardly guess this over-congested generic exercise came from the same mind as the elegant, almost minimalistic “Moon,” which made far better use of all that went unsaid (although repeat collaborator Clint Mansell deserves a special mention for a terrific score that incorporates echoes of Berlin’s rich cultural past into its electro-futuristic soundscape). As if intending to untangle its many mixed messages, “Mute” ends with a dedication to the director’s recently deceased father, David Jones (better known to the world as David Bowie), and nanny, Marion Skene, although its feelings on the subject of parenthood seem deeply conflicted, at best. And yet, Netflix has given Jones the resources to express himself. If only he had done the same for his characters.

Reviewed at Netflix screening room, Los Angeles, Feb. 22, 2018. Running time: 126 MIN.

Production: (U.K.-Germany) A Netflix release and presentation of a Netflix Original, Liberty Films production, in association with Studio Babelsberg. Producer: Ted Sarandos. Executive producers: Pauline Fischer, Collin Creighton, Charles J.D. Schlissel, Trevor Beattie. Co-executive producers: Bill Johnson, Jim Siebel. Co-producers: Christoph Fisser, Henning Molfenter, Charlie Woebcken.
Crew: Director: Duncan Jones. Screenplay: Michael Robert Johnson, Jones. Camera (color): Gary Shaw. Editors: Laura Jennings, Barrett Heathcote. Music: Clint Mansell.
With: Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux, Seyneb Saleh, Robert Sheehan, Gilbert Owuor, Jannis Niewöhner, Rob Kazinsky, Noel Clarke, Levi Eisenblätter, Dominic Monaghan, Sam Rockwell. (English, German dialogue)

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Screen Rant

Mute's ending explained.

Duncan Jones' Mute is now on Netflix, delivering a stylish sci-fi mystery. We explore what it's big reveals - and ending - really mean.

Major spoilers for Mute .

Duncan Jone's Mute is now on Netflix, bringing with it a Blade Runner -esque world with a noticeably down-to-Earth story. The film is a neo-noir mystery (again like Ridley Scott's masterpiece) but told with a major villain twist at its heart and one strange finale. It's sure to cause a lot of debate, so here's our take on Mute 's ending.

The main plot of Mute deals with silent bartender Leo (Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd) looking for his missing girlfriend-with-a-secret, Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh). Their relationship is a touching one despite his inability to speak and technophobia, but alarm bells ring when she's confronted in the club where they both work; this begins to unravel a double life she tries to reveal to Leo - who doesn't want to listen - before she disappears later that night.

Related: Mute Review: Duncan Jones' Berlin Runner 2049

What happens next is an unprofessional detective story intersecting with sci-fi The Big Lebowski , and one very surprising turn from Paul Rudd. Let's dive in.

This Page: Mute's Central Mystery And Villain Twist Explained

What Really Happened To Naadirah?

Leo's investigation sees him tracing Naadirah's supposed earlier footsteps, apparently learning of a hidden side-job as a prostitute. However, through a tortured use of technology to track her home, he then learns that it was actually a double, leading to the uncovering of a prostitute ring using girls from the club. This, in turn, helps him discover her mother's address - and the truth.

Naadirah was trying to get her daughter, Josie, back from Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd), an AWOL (and ahole) US soldier and underground medic currently looking for fake papers to get him and his child out of Berlin and back to his homeland. The fence for these documents were the men who accosted Naadirah in the club, and it's that attempt to leave that is at the core of the disappearance; Naadirah didn't want Josie to go. In response, Cactus broke into Leo's flat and drugged the pair, after which he took Naadirah to his house/surgery and killed her by suffocation.

Leo uncovers this with the help of Cactus' partner-in-crime Duck Teddington (Justin Theroux), who is beginning to doubt his friend's sanity (and affronted by a confrontation about his sexual life, a disgusting element we'll return to). He uses Naadirah's phone to send cryptic messages to Leo, providing key stepping stones in his quest.

Mute's Paul Rudd Villain Twist Explained

That Cactus Bill, played by never-aging nice guy Paul Rudd, is actually the villain of Mute comes as quite a shock (not helped by the flashback mechanism used for the reveal being confusingly different to other cases). At first Cactus came across as a light-hearted, relatable character with a wry, word-aware sense of humor. However, his turn - or, rather, underlying evil - was established from very early on.

Related: Where Do You Recognize The Cast of Mute From?

Duplicity is at the core of Cactus' character. He has clear values that create the illusion of morality, but these are almost exclusively self-centered on his daughter's wellbeing (itself a hint at the murder), with a clear dark side ever present. His career is a shady one, the sadism inherent, and his lifestyle choices questionable (he doesn't worry about taking his daughter to a brothel because he knows and trusts the madam). Indeed, the only reason he confronts Duck on his latent paedophilic tendencies - a perverse bowling joke made real - is because he sees Josie as a victim; once the air is cleared, the pair hug it out. Once the twist is known to the audience, it becomes even more obvious: excessive drinking is a coping mechanism, a jokey act of theft is viewed with critical eyes, and soon the entire facade falls.

Everything is about him and his daughter. After all, that's why he committed the murder in the first place.

Duck's Betrayal Of Cactus

But while Cactus is the perpetrator of the movie's main mystery, his plot resolution is not the end. Once Leo finds Naadirah, the pair battle and Catcus' knife is forced into his own throat.

As the villain lies bleeding out, Duck re-enters the picture. Once the crazier of the pair (since revealed to be of sounder mind compared to the ex-wife killer), Duck has been rather explicitly built up through the film as having a sexual interest in young girls, an unavoidable fact that has forced a wedge between the two amoral surgeons. Duck explains to Cactus how he's not going to help him, then makes him watch him take Josie from her room. Whether his intentions are nefarious are not - there's never any suggestion of action, which may be part of the film's imbalanced exploration of sexual assault - the second knife through his friend's heart is clear.

Related: How To Watch Mute Director Duncan Jones' Previous Films

Yet this aspect doesn't mean the pair's bond is severed, as the ending shows.

Mute's Final Confrontation

All of this builds to Mute 's final confrontation between Leo and Duck, two characters who had no prior interaction up until this point. Teddington fixes Leo's voicebox - which was lacerated by a boat motor as a child and left unhealed by his Amish mother - in an attempt to force the bartender to apologize for killing his friend. He repeatedly asks the mute to say he's sorry, even taking him to the location where his cherished photo of Naadirah was taken, but Leo won't - or can't.

And so Duck instead goes for a more permanent atonement: trying to push Leo off the bridge. Yet, at the last minute, Leo grabs Duck and drags the pair of them both into the river. Leo suffocates Duck until the pedophile drowns and rises to the surface to verbally warn Josie not to jump.

Quite what Jones was intending with the film pivoting in this direction isn't exactly clear, but there's something achingly regretful about the pair how've both lost someone finding shared regret before violence emerges. Whatever the case, it's what comes next where real catharsis lies.

Leo's Returning Voice

And, finally, we come to the unmuting. Emerging from the water, Leo calls at Josie to save her from falling. It's only core sci-fi moment in the plot itself (the rest is more trappings, with the main narrative feeling like it would work in any time period) and serves as a key culmination of his arc. As flashbacks point out, the first time we saw him was rising from water having lost his ability to speak, and throughout the movie he was best able to express himself when in a swimming pool, so here we have the mirrored redemption.

The technicalities of Leo regaining his voice are rather simple - Duck fixed him up - and thus explicitly highlight his inherited technophobia; the wounds were able to be healed, yet even after his mother's remit had gone, Leo still held onto it. The entire movie saw him having to use tech - phones, food ordering - but here we have a point where his goal could only be acheived with it. The Amish thread that dominates early in the film is very much in the background, but it comes to the fore here.

The movie ends with him and Josie in a diner quietly drawing ahead of their journey back to her grandmother's home in the city. It's more a coda, giving the two good characters in the story a chance to recognize their similarities - the fact they share a love of drawing is called back to repeatedly with the bear drawing, as is their silence in the face of the crazy world.

Mute has proven a critical punching bag, and a big part of that no doubt lies in how unclear its true purpose is for much of the film, and even after the Cactus reveal how confusing the meshing of its themes remains. It touches on family, religion, technology, sexual fluidity, and has a prominent focus on Cold War politics (the Berlin setting and Cactus being trapped there), but the grand point is murky - as is its genre stylings (none of the story needed the film to be set in the future).

Nevertheless, it must be said there is a depth to its ending, it just comes more from the serene shared moments between its protagonist and other characters, rather than anything larger.

Next: Does Mute Have An End-Credits Scene?

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Common sense media reviewers.

Futuristic thriller has brutality, sex, cursing.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Innocence, compassion, and a pure heart can triump

Hero is fiercely loyal, courageous, determined, re

Graphic violence, brutality, bloody aftermath. Dea

Many scenes focus on sex and sexuality in a highly

Constant swearing and obscenities, including: "f--

Miller Beer.

Alcohol consumed in bars, a strip club, and social

Positive Messages

Innocence, compassion, and a pure heart can triumph over evil. Even in a violent, repressive, and amoral universe, goodness will emerge.

Positive Role Models

Hero is fiercely loyal, courageous, determined, resourceful, and compassionate; unfortunately, victory comes only after he's forced to resort to violence. Villains are ruthless, savage, many psychopathic. Environment portrayed contributes to the amoral behavior of its citizenry. Most women (and some gay men) are portrayed as sex objects. Ethnic diversity throughout.

Violence & Scariness

Graphic violence, brutality, bloody aftermath. Deaths occur on camera. Characters are fiercely beaten, stabbed, tortured, suffocated. Savage fistfights; injuries sustained. Surgical procedures are depicted at length and up close. Pedophile menaces children. A child nearly drowns, blood in water.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Many scenes focus on sex and sexuality in a highly sexualized environment. Partial nudity; revealing clothing. Women are almost all portrayed as sexual objects (e.g., a house of prostitution is frequently visited, a little girl is menaced by a pedophile). Gay and transgender characters appear as sex objects as well. A strip club has robotic pole dancers, along with actual women. Two robots engage in sex with a giant mechanical penis.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Constant swearing and obscenities, including: "f--k," "s--t," "p---y," "t-ties," "f--got," "pr--k," "bitch" "a--hole," "schtup."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Alcohol consumed in bars, a strip club, and social settings. A cigar.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Mute is a stylish, engrossing film that is part black comedy, part slasher film, and part dystopian thriller, with pathos thrown into the mix as well. Long the pet project of maverick filmmaker Duncan Jones , the film was made after Netflix provided both the funds and the freedom for the writer-director to pull out all the stops in creating a Berlin as envisioned several decades from now: a melting pot of a city, filled with immigrants, AWOL American military personnel, and all manner of sexual exploitation. The city is as sleazy as it is high-tech. Expect many graphic images. Characters are killed, mutilated, tortured, and operated upon with glee by unhinged surgeons. Blood flows; severe bruising is pervasive, characters die. ( Spoiler alert: There are bar fights and a knifing with a very slow bleed-out, and a sympathetic character is suffocated.) Obscenities and swearing is continuous (i.e., "f--k," "s--t," "pr--k," "p---y," "a--hole," "f--got," "bitch"). Sexual situations abound; partial nudity, sexy clothes. ( Spoiler alerts: An explicit sex scene involves robots, complete with outrageous penis. A central character is a leering pedophile; a little girl is his target.) Characters drink, and the social centers of the story are a strip club and a house of prostitution. Mature audiences only. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Tip of the Spear

What's the story.

In MUTE, mid-21st-century Berlin is a city teeming with corruption, untempered sexuality, and violence. Leo (Alexander Skarsgard ), a shy bartender at a gaudy strip club, is voiceless because of a childhood accident. He's in love with Naadirah (Seyner Saleh), a cocktail waitress. Their relationship is passionate, warm, and genuine. After a tender night together, during which Naadirah reveals that there are secrets she hasn't yet shared with him, Leo wakes up to find her gone. Distraught, he sets out to find her. Leo's mission takes him into the underbelly of the city. Among those he encounters are two off-the-wall former U.S. army surgeons: Cactus Bill ( Paul Rudd ), who's desperately trying to get false papers to take his young daughter out of Berlin; and Duck ( Justin Theroux) , Billl's sidekick with some off-putting proclivities. Leo's presence and persistence begin to upset the status quo, especially an unscrupulous crime lord. After a series of mind-bending twists and turns, Leo's obsession results in his becoming the hunted, culminating in a fierce battle between the forces of good and evil.

Is It Any Good?

Filmmaker Duncan Jones cleverly manages to put the dystopian setting in the background and focuses his camera on the dark, sadistic characters and behavior that have evolved in that setting. The future Berlin of Jones' imagination is similar to 2019/2049 Los Angeles in Blade Runner . And like that movie, the "tech" is high, but it doesn't move the story. The people do. And what a bizarre "community" it is in Mute: thugs, sexual predators, torturers, AWOL American soldiers on the run from its wars that never ended, and, most bizarre of all, medics. Justin Theroux is almost unrecognizable and Paul Rudd's fans are in for a shock of humongous proportions.

It's a brutally violent movie, bordering on ridiculous during some sequences (e.g. -- spoiler alert -- a dying man takes several scenes to gurgle and bubble as the blood slowly ebbs from his body). The fact that Jones is able to successfully combine laughs, irony, and a very sympathetic hero with gore, pedophilia, and obscenities isn't to be dismissed. Definitely not for kids.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Mute. How did watching so many graphic images make you feel? Which sequences, if any, do you believe were meant to be so over-the-top that they were funny? Why is it important for families to understand the impact of violent movies on kids ?

In the context of movies and stories, what is meant by the term "dystopian"? How is Mute an example of a dystopia? On the other hand, what is meant by the term "utopian"? If you have seen Black Panther, how is Wakanda an example of a utopia?

How does the art direction (sets, costumes, props) reflect the director's creative vision in Mute ? How does the director use those elements to help illuminate the characters and their behavior, as well as the mood and culture of the city?

If you are a fan of Paul Rudd, how did you feel about his portrayal of Cactus Bill? Did it surprise you? How did his usual comedic persona add to the unexpectedness of this role?

Movie Details

On DVD or streaming : February 23, 2018
Cast : Alexander Skarsgard , Paul Rudd , Justin Theroux
Director : Duncan Jones
Studio : Netflix
Genre : Thriller
Run time : 126 minutes
MPAA rating : NR
Last updated : February 18, 2023

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Mute Is Meh, But Gets Points for Being Extremely Random

We’ve met amateur detectives of all races, religions, and genders, and with all sorts of afflictions and hidden talents, but Alexander Skarsgård is almost certainly the first mute Amish illustrator/bartender to hit the dirty streets in search of a missing person. The missing person in Mute is the love of his life, Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh), who waited tables — and had to endure men putting their hands up her skirt — at a teeming, high-tech Berlin dance club where Skarsgård’s Leo tends bar. Early on, we see her tell off a sneering gangster who asks how Naadirah could love a mute: “He doesn’t need words. He’s kind.” But now she’s gone, and Leo grabs his custom notepad reading “MUTE” and makes off with the nearest hover car.

Did I mention Mute — directed by Duncan Jones, of Moon — unfolds in an unspecified future that’s part Blade Runner , part Minority Report , part Amazon.com wet dream of circling commercial drones? The setting doesn’t add much to the noir story line, but I loved the idea that a guy could order food and tell the dispatcher to bring it to him wherever he happens to be. The food-ordering guy doesn’t figure into the plot — he’s background noise. But the plot isn’t exactly a nail-biter, so it’s Jones’s vision of an ultradecadent future in which cameras are everywhere and spies spy on spies spying on spies that keep us from clicking over to yet another Parks and Recreation rerun on Netflix — where Mute premiered.

Another reason to watch is Paul Rudd and the mutton chops that give him, perhaps for the first time in his career, a sinister cast. Yes, the world’s nicest actor is playing a character of ambiguous morals, a surgeon and drunk on the run from a hellish stint in Afghanistan (where Americans are evidently a permanent presence) and determined to get back to the U.S. somehow. Billboards everywhere exhort Berliners to turn in AWOL American soldiers.

Rudd’s doctor comrade is played by Justin Theroux in another performance where you know something’s off about the guy but can’t tell if it’s the character or the actor who’s making you nervous. Theroux is really good and creepy. So is Rudd, for that matter. The movie is better when it lingers on the pair instead of Skarsgård, a fine actor reduced to a lanky frame and moist eyes. (“Keep walkin’, ya lanky prick!” yells one of the bad guys, which reminded me of the Dennis the Menace cartoon in which Dennis’s dad soothes his son, bruised from defending his father: “But son, I am lanky!”) Also, it’s hard to torture a mute for information because he needs his hands free.

Mute is pretty meh but gets points for randomness. The climax features a pedophile making off with a little girl while the mute struggles to make a sound. It’s as if someone laid out the story line like Mad Libs , leaving blanks for someone else to yell, “Mute!” “Amish!” “Pedophile!”

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‘Mute’ Review: Duncan Jones’ Futuristic Bowie Tribute Feels Like an Amish ‘Blade Runner’ Spin-Off

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“ Mute ” closes with a dedication to director Duncan Jones ‘ childhood nanny, and to his father, David Jones, aka David Bowie. Even before that blatant acknowledgement, “Mute” has obvious personal ramifications for the director by communing with Bowie’s legacy, with a Ziggy Stardust remix of neo-noir tropes. From a familiar set of references, the movie forges an unexpected narrative stew — namely, the story of a voiceless Amish man in a “Blade Runner”-inspired Berlin (which, of course, carries plenty of Bowie resonance on its own). “Mute” is ludicrous, but within the confines of its referential logic, also pretty cool.

It’s a mad gamble that works better than it should, and though it never quite finds its natural rhythm, stands out as one of the strangest Netflix original productions to date — a messy, off-the-wall conceit made with a sizable budget — and it could only have found support from a studio capable of luring audiences on the basis of the movie’s resemblance to other material. Whereas “Bright” offered Netflix subscribers hip to Will Smith movies and “Lord of the Rings” the mashup they never really needed, “Mute” suggests what might happen if a user had “Blade Runner,” “Witness” and “M*A*S*H” stacked together in a Netflix queue and flipped between the three until they became interchangeable. In an age of algorithms-mandated greenlights, we know for a fact that things could be worse.

Still, it’s tough to swallow the setup as “Mute” settles in. In a brief prologue, young Amish Leo suffers from a debilitating boat accident that leaves him with substantial tissue damage; a nurse says that surgery can restore his ability to speak, but his mother refuses, proclaiming that only God can help him now. Cut to decades later: It’s 2050, and Leo’s a grown man now played by Alexander Skarsgard and living in a futuristic Berlin, although it looks a lot like the Los Angeles of both “Blade Runner” movies: Flying cars and shadowy skyscrapers dot a landscape alongside blaring neon ads and silhouetted crowds. Set one year after the recent “Blade Runner” sequel, it may as well exist in its expanded universe, but it’s actually more of a dreamlike echo.

Jones trades a moody cyborg hunter for Leo, a lanky man with soft features who leads an innocent routine, wears dusty clothes and still driving around town in an old car, maintaining his Amish rituals even as he works as the bartender at a seedy nightclub and maintains a relationship with blue-haired waitress Naadirah (Sayneb Saleh). By all indications, she’s a gentle soul who cares for Leo and wants the best for him, but he can’t stand the way the men at the bar treat her and she begs him not to intervene. But he’s a strong guy who doesn’t have words at his disposal, and when a couple of local gangsters make some unwelcome advances, he can’t help himself. In the midst of this drama, Naadirah promptly disappears, sending Leo into hardboiled detective mode as he careens through the subterranean world to find her.

This actually describes only half the plot. “Mute” intersperses Leo’s plight with the unlikely ballad of Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd) and Duck (Justin Theroux), a pair of AWOL military vets who scrape by doing underground surgical work. Bill’s a hard-drinking single dad sick of Berlin and keen on scoring papers that would let him smuggle his way out of the country; Duck’s the leering sidekick with a thing for underage girls. It’s a disturbing dynamic at odds with their rambunctious chemistry, yet at the same time, the actors invest so much in their unruly characters that they often steal the show.

Bill and Duck are the villains of the story, though it takes some time to establish them as much, because Jones seems to be having so much fun writing his own versions of “M*A*S*H” scene-stealers Trapper John and Hawkeye (he admits as much in the press notes). Rudd, wearing an exuberant handlebar mustache and carrying a giant knife around in his back pocket, turns in a cartoonish psychopath that register as his most far-reaching role ever, while Theroux defaults to camp. Their antics ultimately circle back to Leo’s quest, but it’s such a separate trajectory that they never fully gel together.

Still, the dissonant ingredients speak to Jones’ broader vision of a bustling metropolis defined by outsiders, where lonely Amish and clandestine military vets dot the streets in mutual disdain for the outside world. All things considered, Jones juggles these ingredients well enough in individual moments, but they can’t overcome some of the clumsier bits in the script (“I’m AWOL, you’re a-hole”), or a third act reveal that doesn’t quite hold together. Tonally, the movie suffers from a disconnect between earnest storytelling and broad caricatures.

Jones demonstrates true vision in his quest to fuse them together, but even as Skarsgard gives an understated performance based purely on subtle shifts in expression, Leo’s too opaque of a character to become the silent centerpiece the movie attempts to make him. He seems to adhere to strict religious standards (no surgery, no technology) and yet maintains a secular romance and lives well beyond the boundary’s of his family tradition for reasons never fully explained. The movie’s key drama rests on his investment in a woman we barely get to know or care about, so Leo’s central emotional struggle rings oddly hollow throughout. It doesn’t help that a lot of the supporting characters register as crude stereotypes, including a flamboyant bartender and the oodles of empty bad guys who stand in Leo’s way.

Nevertheless, Jones is clearly striving to develop something fresh out of well-trodden material, and “Mute” at least provides a few reminders that Jones is a notable genre director. After his superb minimalist noir “Moon” and the brain pretzel “Source Code,” Jones’ misguided “Warcraft” adaptation suggested his originality had been consumed by the dark side of studio-driven spectacles. In contrast, “Mute” is imaginative enough to bring him back to steadier ground. It merges heavy pastiche in a unique formula, and the risky endeavor indicates genuine talent. One passing glimpse of Sam Rockwell’s multiple clones on a TV set implies Jones has developed an expanding universe of his own. The genre stands to benefit from his continuing exploration of it, rather than more love letters to the movies he adored as a kid.

“Mute” winds down with a series of violent conflicts and meandering showdowns until it finally lands on a touching conclusion. The movie echoes Bowie’s otherworldliness in art and life with sci-fi exuberance and undeniably soulful yearning. The stakes revolve around the rather obvious conceit of a man cut off from the world who finally finds his voice, but at the same time, they illustrate the plight of a filmmaker grasping to find one of his own.

“Mute” is now streaming on Netflix.

Mute review – Duncan Jones's sci-fi thriller is a Netflix disaster

The Moon director has delivered a catastrophically misjudged riff on Blade Runner with an astoundingly dull performance from Alexander Skarsgård

I f one were to relax one’s eyes and stand very far away, the career of Duncan Jones might begin to resemble that of the young Hollywood savior he’s clearly angling to be. Like George Lucas before him, Jones made a name for himself with a blazingly original sci-fi sleeper (2009’s excellent Moon) which he then parlayed into a workmanlike box-office success (2011’s high-concept Source Code). But sometime in the five-year hiatus prior to 2016’s Warcraft, a difficult period marked by his wife’s battle with cancer and his father’s death, he strayed from the path. His adaptation of the popular online fantasy game was to be Jones’ graduation into the uppermost echelon of big-league film-making, but it was savaged by critics and ate dirt at the US box office.

All of which has led to Mute, a spectacularly blown shot at redemption. In the parallel universe where everything’s gone right for Jones, this long-labored-over passion project would have been his magnum opus, an idiosyncratically imagined futuro-fantasia worthy of the Blade Runner comparisons it so shamelessly courts. But while Jones has never been lacking in ambition, here that quality seems more like a willingness to “go for it”. The depth of his creative commitment hasn’t turned shallow, but it has been applied to a collection of perilously bad impulses.

Foremost among them is Leo Beller, your run-of-the-mill Amish bartender at Berlin’s premier robot strip club circa 2058. Portrayed with a carefully measured mix of glowering, breathing, blinking, and standing by Alexander Skarsgård , Leo has been rendered unable to speak by one of those throat-slashing Amish motorboating accidents that are always in the news. His pat quest to locate a missing girlfriend, in conjunction with Leo’s thin characterization and a minimal range of expression from Skarsgård , leads to one surpassingly boring performance. As he trudges through the warpath already well-trod by Taken and its numerous offspring, Skarsgård simply occupies space onscreen. If acting is music, he is noise, a series of vaguely related sounds.

Watch the trailer for Netflix's latest release, Mute – video

Leo graciously cedes approximately half of the narrative attention to a pair of American surgeons, who have the decency to spruce Jones’ stultifying dialogue up with a bit of their own flavor. Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux appear to be doing everything in their estimable powers to have a bit of fun from under their ridiculous hairpieces (a robust full-face moustache and young Steve Jobs wig, respectively). The two are playfully homoerotic pals and partners-in-crime – literally, they sew gangsters up on the down-low for easy money – who have something to do with the mystery of Leo’s missing paramour, and that’s not discretion for the sake of the spoiler-averse. Their relation to the wider mechanisms of plot are not clear. Not merely tonally incoherent, the film’s denouement utterly defies comprehension; the barrage of inexplicable twists that closes out the film contains one of the more unexpected and staggeringly mishandled depictions of pedophilia in recent memory.

But after horror, sci-fi is the genre in which the portal to that rarefied realm of transcendent awfulness opens widest. When it becomes apparent that Mute will not be a great achievement in the usual sense, which happens after five minutes or so, the hope becomes that it will end up one of those intimately personal messes that driven auteurs sometimes vomit out. In dribs and drabs during Theroux and Rudd’s strand of story, Jones skims the heights of lunacy that make The Fifth Element and Jupiter Ascending fascinating in their flaws. But these windows close all too quickly, and the expanses of deadening stasis between them are too wide.

If Mute were a better film, it would provide a shining example of the Netflix machine functioning exactly as designed: write creators with vision a check, let them do their thing, and trust that the lack of oversight will translate to a product with integrity. Jones has spent 15 years trying to get this production off the ground, no small feat in an industry that has all but abandoned mid-budget genre pictures, and Netflix should come off looking like a guardian angel to visionaries frustrated by the studio system.

The problem is that Jones couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain and deliver work that rates even as “interesting”, the last salvation of flagrantly terrible movies. (How his post-digital Berlin could simultaneously look so expensive and so cheap may be a Zen riddle.) Instead, most disappointingly of all, the volleys of overindulgent inertia mount a convincing argument against the very class of release in sadly short supply at present. Watching Jones passively bob in the deep end of his imagination, a viewer longs for the compulsory baseline competence of the big studios – anything but the blandness masquerading as future cult bait.

Mute is now available to stream on Netflix
Science fiction and fantasy films
Duncan Jones
Alexander Skarsgård

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‘Mute’ Review: An Immersive World, an Engaging Tale, and a Disjointed Script

Thankfully, Paul Rudd’s vocal cords work just fine.

It’s forty years from now, and Berlin is a hopping, progressive city filled with working stiffs, party goers, gangsters, and victims. Leo ( Alexander Skarsgård ) is mute, having lost his voice as a boy to an injury his Amish mother refused to have fixed surgically, and works as a bartender in a club alongside his waitress girlfriend Naadirah ( Seyneb Saleh ). He awakes one morning to find she’s gone missing, and the harder he searches for her the darker the secrets he uncovers — and the more danger he finds himself in.

That pretty much sums up the main story line running through Duncan Jones ‘ fourth feature, Mute , but it’s oddly far from the most compelling one. That honor belongs to Cactus Bill ( Paul Rudd ), an American surgeon who’s currently AWOL from his military service and working for the mob in order to finance forged identification for himself and his young daughter Josie. He wants to leave Berlin behind and return to America without the law after him, and he’s engaging in some real dirty work to make it happen.

The two characters unsurprisingly cross paths, as do their story lines, but while they’re given equal screen time their weight by any other metric is uneven and tilted in Cactus’ favor. It’s through no fault of Skarsgård’s performance (although his lack of dialogue certainly doesn’t help), but Leo feels entirely one-note as the average guy looking for the woman he loves. We’re given too little time with Naadirah to forge a real connection and instead are left entirely with Leo’s unspoken but mandatory need to find her. Vocal affliction aside, we’ve seen Leo before.

Cactus, by contrast, is a fascinating and original creation.

Rudd has shown dramatic chops more than a few times previously, but here he’s allowed to balance his funnyman persona with something far darker and potentially threatening. From his epic, 70s-inspired mustache to his expressive/verbal dismissals of those around him, Cactus is a highly entertaining guy in a real and understandable jam. He loves his daughter, and his need to get out of Berlin is a clear motivation for the path he’s traveling. Rudd makes him likable through his humor and affection for Josie, and it’s his story line that captivates. Both Cactus and his narrative are irresistible, and the film loses energy every time it switches back over to its title character.

Supporting characters and players are a mixed bag of the charismatic and the banal. Duck ( Justin Theroux ) belongs in the former group as a doctor with his own secrets competing with the dirty business he shares with Cactus, and Theroux succeeds in walking a very fine line between playful and creepy. The various underworld figures, though, from bosses to henchman, are fairly bland.

The characters are the most notable source of imbalance in the script (co-written by Jones and Michael Robert Johnson ), but other issues rear their heads. Cactus’ AWOL status is one shared by a high number of American servicemen apparently, and while it’s touched on enough to become a plot point it does so without detail or explanation. Leo’s Amish upbringing feels like a roundabout way to explain his condition, especially as it has no real bearing on the rest of his character. Some third act flashbacks are handled a bit clunky too, and they add to the list of pieces that feel adrift from the whole.

These are real issues, but even with the stumbles Mute manages to capture and hold your attention thanks in part to its visual style and tone. World-building is an often underrated aspect of science fiction films as too many of them focus on imagery that screams “sci-fi” while never truly meshing together as part of the world. The Holy Grail in this regard is Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (and more recently, Denis Villeneuve’s belated follow-up, Blade Runner 2049 ) — the 80s classic immerses viewers into smartly-conceived environments that feel lived-in and tangible, foreign but familiar, and that in turn works to enhance the narrative. Numerous films have tried to ape the original’s style, but while Mute appears to lack Scott’s budget it succeeds better than most in dropping both characters and audiences into a believable and fully-functioning world.

From subtle production design choices to drones delivering fast food to robot strippers, it feels like a lived-in, near-future world not too far removed from our own. Flying cars aside, you can easily believe this environment and these characters exist. Jones moves viewers through it all with a sharp eye, intriguing characters, and another solid score from Clint Mansell , and while the energy wavers the pull toward the end remains strong. It can’t reach Moon ‘s emotional weight or Source Code ‘s smart story, but it’s a clear realignment for a director temporarily detoured out of his comfort zone by the CG-filled shenanigans of Warcraft .

Mute is ultimately an engaging story about human foibles and frailties set against a sci-fi backdrop, and while it may not be something to shout about it at least deserves an indoor-voice cheer.

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Mute movie review: Netflix's streak of disappointing sci-fi films continues with Alexander Skarsgård-starrer

Mute seems to have all the right ingredients — an impressive cast, futuristic noir visual palette, neon-lit visual effects. However, the film is let down by monotonous character dynamics, a dull and meandering investigation, bland usage of potentially cool production design and a truly mind-numbing big reveal.

It’s heartbreaking to compare Duncan Jones’ career with folks like Neil Blomkamp and Night Shyamalan in the late 2000s but there’s no denying that he’s fallen off the rails, hard. If his Warcraft adaptation seemed like a one-off, ruined due to the studio not letting him follow his vision, his new film Mute quashes that theory — because this is a bonafide disaster on every level. It’s also the third disappointing big Netflix sci-fi release after Bright and The Cloverfield Paradox.

Mute seems to have all the right ingredients — an impressive cast of Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux; a futuristic noir visual palette in the vein of Blade Runner; a mystery contained within the neon-lit visual effects. Nothing, unfortunately works here as the story is peppered with monotonous character dynamics, a dull and meandering investigation, bland usage of potentially cool production design and a truly mind-numbing big reveal.

The only interesting aspect of the film is the opening scene where we see a boy drowning in a water body with his throat leaking blood. It’s a haunting moment that sets a certain tone of horror and emotional turmoil that barely carries over to the rest of the film, which is set in a completely different landscape. Skarsgård plays the mute Leo, a bartender at a fururistic night club in Germany in love with Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh) the waitress in the club. After an altercation with a couple of seedy people in the club, the girl goes missing and Leo begins an investigation.

Again, the plot screams that this should have been an entertaining movie about a missing girl and Jones could have taken the setup to any possible direction — this is a futuristic Germany after all. Frustratingly, the plot crawls from one dreary and predictably vulgar looking club to another, the mystery sagging at its seams. The film also keeps shifting to a subplot of a couple of American surgeons (Rudd and Theroux) which has all the energy and excitement of a snail running a marathon. It just makes no sense why Jones keeps us returning to the two surgeons for long and tedious swaths when the film should be about Leo’s journey — and the payoff in the third act involving these characters absolutely does not have the weight or an element of surprise that would justify this narrative choice.

The indulgent style of filmmaking is grating to say the least, this is particularly apparent in a long shot where we zoom through half a dozen levels of bowling alley levels, just so that Jones can showcase his visual style. When we’re utterly dis-invested in the characters, no amount of visual trickery can make us care. This is a red flag for Jones, who has made Moon and Source Code , two amazing films that broke through the mold of pre-existing sci-fi. It is clear that he needs more writing partners to collaborate with. All eyes are now on Alex Garland’s Annihilation to satisfy sci fi nerds who trawl the exciting waters of Netflix.

Mute is currently streaming on Netflix India. Watch the trailer here:

Mihir Fadnavis is a film critic and certified movie geek who has consumed more movies than meals. He blogs at http://mihirfadnavis.blogspot.in. see more

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Mute Review

I have been describing Duncan Jones ' Mute as " Blade Runner 's kinky cousin." The comparison to Sir Ridley Scott's slick wet future dream might be top of mind because Denis Villenueve so expertly revived the world with his own Blade Runner 2049 . But there's no way not to view Mute and not feel as if the neon-drenched landscapes of Jones' futuristic playground doesn't take inspiration from Scott's visionary creation. But then we reach a significant plot turn, and we realize that Jones aims to tell a different type of story here. And that's when Mute gets downright sleazy.

Thanks to a tragic accident that occurred during his childhood, Leo (Alexander Skarsgard) is unable to speak. Now grown, he spends his evenings tending bar at a dangerous Berlin nightclub, the kind of seedy joint where entitled gangsters openly hit on cocktail servers like the blue-haired, pale-skinned Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh). Leo hates this. You see, he and Naadirah date, and outside of the bar, she shows him a human and emotional side that she keeps from the watering-hole patrons. For her own survival.

Leo's self-imposed distance from the criminal underlings at his workplace gets challenged, however, when Naadirah disappears. She warns Leo that she's no good, and that the strong-but-silent barkeep would be better off without her. But he doesn't listen. So, he begins to investigate her mysterious absence, and the clues point him to a mess of underworld shenanigans.

This is where we catch up with the colorful reason why Mute is worth a stream. The "B" plot in Duncan Jones' sci-fi thriller runs concurrent to Leo's quest (they intersect eventually, very late in the movie), and follows the exploits of two drifters, Cactus Bill ( Paul Rudd ) and Duck ( Justin Theroux ). The duo mainly earn money performing surgeries for mob bosses. Your underling took on some shrapnel in a gun fight? Bring them to Bill and Duck's hideaway operating table. These two have a rich history, which is hinted at through dialogue as the movie zings along. But Cactus Bill isn't focus on his past. He's concerned for his future. He has a daughter. He needs papers, so he can get out of Berlin. He wants to be back in the States. And he'll sacrifice Duck -- and Leo -- if it means getting him out of Germany and back home.

Duncan Jones has gone on the record to say that Mute took him 16 years to get made, and now that we're able to see it, it's easy to understand why. This is a dirty, kinky film that would have to be compromised if it were to be released in theaters. Basically, Mute needed Netflix, and Netflix -- in an effort to establish itself as a destination for original programming -- needed Mute . Content police don't seem to monitor Netflix with the same regulations as the MPAA, meaning that Mute doesn't have to pull punches when it explores the dark crevices of Cactus Bill and Duck's practices. You might think you know where Mute is going with them, but you'll be glad to be wrong.

That storyline works because Paul Rudd plays so deliciously against type as Cactus Bill. Rudd's a natural charmer, a likable guy who audiences want to befriend, in virtually every circumstance. But rarely has Rudd been required to use that accessibility to lure people in to a truly menacing persona like Cactus, and it says a lot about his performance that even when we know the truth about this man, I still found myself compelled to side with him. Maybe it's just that glorious mustache. I'm under its spell.

I'm also under the spell of the neo-noir, cyberpunk Berlin that Duncan Jones creates with production designer Gavin Bocquet and composer Clint Mansell. As mentioned, it feels like an offshoot of Blade Runner , as if, if at any moment, you tore your eyes away from Harrison Ford 's Rick Deckard and peeked down a different alley, you'd spy Cactus Bill or Leo and choose to follow them for a few hours. Jones even connects Mute to his earlier sci-fi drama, Moon , in a clever sequence, laying an even broader foundation.

What Mute lacks in originality, it makes up for in risky storytelling and unpredictably grimy plot decisions. The storylines connect in a satisfying manner, and the production values create a futuristic sandbox that doesn't feel cheapened by a reduced budget. It all reminds me that I'd like to come back to Mute 's world and follow more storylines, because you know this fertile ground can unearth up many more engaging narratives.

Sean O’Connell is a journalist and CinemaBlend’s Managing Editor. Having been with the site since 2011, Sean interviewed myriad directors, actors and producers, and created ReelBlend, which he proudly cohosts with Jake Hamilton and Kevin McCarthy. And he's the author of RELEASE THE SNYDER CUT, the Spider-Man history book WITH GREAT POWER, and an upcoming book about Bruce Willis.

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Movie Review: “Mute” And Its Confusing Message

[yasr_overall_rating]

A mute bartender goes up against his city’s gangsters in an effort to find out what happened to his missing partner.

As a purveyor of Duncan Jones’ work I stink. I’ve only seen “Warcraft” and I missed legendary pieces “Moon” and “Source Code.” Which is too bad because I love Sam Rockwell. Duncan Jones (a name that reminds me of Mike Jones the rapper for some reason) apparently carved a name for himself in the sci-fi and fantasy genre fare slowly, over time. His latest entry (a Netflix-hyped piece) into Sci-Fi minces together elements of “The Fifth Element” and the we-are-not-worthy “Blade Runner” with a tone eerily reminiscent of “Southland Tales.”

“Mute”’s plot follows an Amish man living in the Sci-Fi world of the not-so-distant future. After an accident when he’s a kid leaves him mute, he works in the world to build a better life for himself and the love of his life (played by Seyneb Saleh.) He wakes up one morning and she’s gone. Thus begins his search for her. Mute.

Meanwhile, Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd), an ornery American military defector, works alongside his doctor friend (in a relationship that’s two steps past bromance and one step away from a gay couple) to get new visas for him and his daughter to return to the States. Also, this whole thing is set in Sci-Fi Berlin (just Berlin but in the future.)

Look, the message of the film suffers from its split personalities. Alexander Skarsgård’s constantly-wounded Leo has to learn to navigate the world of technology and abandon his lifestyle by bits and pieces to find the love of his life. On the other hand, Paul Rudd’s character navigates the criminal world, letting his tension ratchet up, heading for a violent finale.

I found myself saddened by the gradual stripping away of Leo’s Amish culture. The more he searches for Naadirah (his love) the deeper he goes into the underworld of this sci-fi world until eventually the last major piece of his identity is taken from him. This theme reflects on multiple levels: the increased engagement Leo uses with technology (something the Amish have forsworn), his wardrobe changes. Slowly, scene by scene Leo becomes a modern man.

This movie is a great opportunity to talk about disability in film. The story of Leo, as a mute, presents nothing but obstacles he cannot overcome without interacting with the modern world. By that presentation, the film admits it is impossible to be both Amish and mute. Yes, he functioned well before, but he was always going to get dragged in. Multiple instances demonstrate futuristic impediments that Leo would easily overcome if he could speak (he can ask a librarian to find the phone books for him, or speak his phone number into a meal-order service.) The thing I find most ironic is that these impediments seem futuristic and intelligently made but they’re not that futuristic. As a person who’s worked with mute/deaf-mute people, I can safely say the inability to speak is misperceived as an obstacle. The reality I’ve found is that deaf-mute people may struggle but never in a way that compromises them morally. I’ve come to understand a disability is not truly a disability.

All that is to say you can understand my sadness at the end of the film. Maybe I shouldn’t give away too much on this one. People might want to see this and I don’t want to ruin it, but suffice to say Leo changes so much he is barely recognizable from the beginning.

Alexander Skarsgård leads the cast in a constantly wounded affection that crescendos into rage rarely. His demeanor and performance with a disability does not speak to my experience with actual deaf-mute people but for the sake of this film, he performs well. I want to shout out Paul Rudd for giving a performance that truly transcends his usual shtick. Instead of just goofy and playful he’s menacing, ornery, and downright prickly.

Awash in color the film’s aesthetic feels borderline cartoonish when it’s not intentionally aiming at mood. The neon colors leech their starburst flavors onto other characters equally as vibrant in costumes that remind me of Chris Rock from “The Fifth Element.” The film’s treatment of different sexualities also confused me. Given the protagonist is achingly heterosexual and rejects the touch of another man outright, and also that the antagonist has a vaguely homosexual relationship with his partner in crime, I left this movie feeling like a strange judgment on non-heteronormative sexuality had been passed.

Look, I’m reading too much into it. The film’s not enough for a search for there to be detective labels. Alexander Skarsgård’s character isn’t enough of a badass. Paul Rudd isn’t enough of a villain. Just when you think the plot’s climaxed, it keeps going. Also, the film borderline indulges on pedophilia at one point. I wanted to like this movie but so many moving parts left a bitter taste in my mouth. You can say I’m reading too much into it, but this movie left me feeling sad both because the plot is sad and because the theme saddened me even more. Maybe skip over this one and find something else more your speed on Netflix.

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‘Mute Witness’ – Watch the Trailer for Arrow Video’s 4K Restoration of the 1995 Horror Movie [Exclusive]

The 1995 horror movie Mute Witness has found a whole new audience here in 2024, with Shudder finally bringing the cat-and-mouse thriller to streaming earlier this month.

Additionally, Arrow Video is bringing Mute Witness to 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray for the very first time on June 11 , and we’ve scored the trailer for their brand new restoration.

Watch the trailer below and read on for everything you need to know!

Director Anthony Waller ( The Piper, An American Werewolf in Paris ) combines cat-and-mouse suspense with classic intrigue in Mute Witness , an updated take on the Hitchcockian thriller in which the only witness to a brutal crime can neither speak nor cry out in terror.

Limited Edition Bonus Features include:

4K restoration approved by director Anthony Waller
4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in HDR10
Restored original lossless stereo soundtrack
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Brand new audio commentary by writer/director Anthony Waller
Brand new audio commentary with production designer Matthias Kammermeier and composer Wilbert Hirsch, moderated by critic Lee Gambin
The Silent Death, brand new visual essay by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, examining Mute Witness and its relationship with snuff films
The Wizard Behind the Curtain, brand new visual essay by author and critic Chris Alexander, exploring the phenomenon of the film-within-a-film
Original “Snuff Movie” presentation, produced to generate interest from investors and distributors, featuring interviews with Anthony Waller and members of the creative team
Original location scouting footage
Original footage with Alec Guinness, filmed a decade prior to the rest of Mute Witness
Teaser trailer
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais
Double-sided foldout poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais
Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michelle Kisner

In the film, Billy Hughes ( Marina Zudina ) is a mute special effects artist working on a low budget American slasher movie being shot in Russia. Accidentally locked in the studio late one night, she stumbles upon two men shooting what appears to be a snuff film. Having borne witness to their victim’s final moments, Billy desperately flees – but this is only the start of a protracted night of terror, drawing her and her friends into a tangled web of intrigue, involving the KGB, the Moscow police… and a mysterious crime kingpin known as “The Reaper.”

Arrow Video previews the new release, “Filmed on location in Moscow and co-starring Fay Ripley ( Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein ) and Evan Richards ( Society ), Mute Witness is an unpredictable, nerve-shreddingly tense viewing experience. Now fully restored in 4K and presented alongside a host of new and recently unearthed bonus materials, there has never been a better opportunity to discover – or rediscover – this gem of 90s thriller cinema.”

You can pre-order your copy from Diabolik today.

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

Gateway Horror Classic ‘The Gate’ Returns to Life With Blu-ray SteelBook in May

One of my personal favorite horror movies of all time, 1987’s gateway horror classic The Gate is opening back up on May 14 with a brand new Blu-ray SteelBook release from Lionsgate!

The new release will feature fresh SteelBook artwork from Vance Kelly, seen below.

Special Features, all of which were previously released, include…

Director Tibor Takacs, Writer Michael Nankin, and Special Effects Designer & Supervisor Randall William Cook
Special Effects Designer & Supervisor Randall William Cook, Special Make-Up Effects Artist Craig Reardon, Special Effects Artist Frank Carere, and Matte Photographer Bill Taylor
Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview
The Gate : Unlocked
Minion Maker
From Hell It Came
The Workman Speaks!
Made in Canada
From Hell: The Creatures & Demons of The Gate
The Gatekeepers
Vintage Featurette: Making of The Gate
Teaser Trailer
Theatrical Trailer
Storyboard Gallery
Behind-the-Scenes Still Gallery

When best friends Glen ( Stephen Dorff ) and Terry ( Louis Tripp ) stumble across a mysterious crystalline rock in Glen’s backyard, they quickly dig up the newly sodden lawn searching for more precious stones. Instead, they unearth The Gate — an underground chamber of terrifying demonic evil. The teenagers soon understand what evil they’ve released as they are overcome with an assortment of horrific experiences. With fiendish followers invading suburbia, it’s now up to the kids to discover the secret that can lock The Gate forever . . . if it’s not too late.

If you’ve never seen The Gate , it’s now streaming on Prime Video and Tubi.

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San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2024 Review: Mute Movies, Live Music

San Francisco

The continued flourishing of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival suggests that even in the face of considerable adversity, unlikely things can thrive. Founded in 1996 and having completed its 27th iteration on Sunday, the festival has prevailed over the Covid-19 pandemic and at least temporary dislocation from its longtime home at the landmark Castro Theater, a 1922 movie palace currently undergoing substantial renovation.

This year, the festival unspooled April 10 through 14 at a cinderblock barn of a theater from 1970 adjacent to the Palace of Fine Arts, a preserved folly constructed for a 1915 world’s fair and one of this city’s most-photographed sites. Unfortunately, the new venue’s remote location, near a highway and within sight of the Golden Gate Bridge, was less accessible than the Castro, but that didn’t stop the faithful from attending, even as audiences were generally smaller.

The catholic choices—movies not just from the U.S., but from Europe and Asia, too—proved especially appealing this year, with principal credit going, as usual, to artistic director Anita Monga. Most important of all, each film (20 features in total) was screened with live musical accompaniment—everything from a solo piano to a six-piece band with Foley sound effects.

In many cases, these extraordinary musicians, all festival regulars, were adept on various instruments, among them Günter Buchwald on piano and violin, Mas Koga on a range of wind instruments including saxophones, and Stephen Horne on piano augmented by flute, accordion and glockenspiel. Two groups long associated with the festival, the Swedish Matti Bye Ensemble and the American Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, also returned to much acclaim. And in an essential unifying role, Ron Lynch was again the “voice of the festival,” announcing the programming, introducing a range of impressive guest speakers from around the world, and, vitally, gently admonishing attendees to silence cellphones.

Inaugurating this year’s festival was a newly restored version of “The Black Pirate” (1926), a swashbuckler starring Douglas Fairbanks and the first major feature shot in Technicolor. For all those who’ve wondered why Fairbanks was regarded as the silent era’s most significant noncomic male star, here’s your answer. Virile, athletic, romantic and gently self-effacing, he practically bounds from the screen, and all the more so when the picture looks as good as this one now does.

Predictably, Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” (1924) and Harold Lloyd’s “The Kid Brother” (1927), two classic comedies, drew some of the biggest crowds. But the dramas—melodramas and moral tales, familiar and obscure—offered just as many rewards. Amazingly, the festival had never before screened “The Phantom Carriage” (1921), a Swedish picture directed by and starring Victor Sjöström as a destructive, unrepentant alcoholic given one last chance, thanks to the supernatural, to atone for his wrongs. An undisputed silent-film masterpiece, the movie had a huge influence on Ingmar Bergman, who prevailed on Sjöström to star in “Wild Strawberries” 36 years later.

But even festivalgoers somehow immune to the immense power of Sjöström’s film couldn’t escape the deep pathos of “The Lady” (1925), directed by Frank Borzage and starring a heart-rending Norma Talmadge as a wide-eyed chorine dumped by her feckless aristocrat husband and then forced to raise their child in a seedy French bordello. And, oh yes, it gets worse from there.

Best translated as “Carrot Top,” “Poil de Carotte” (1925) is Julien Duvivier’s first cinematic version of this property—he later remade it as a sound film. An unblinking look at familial neglect in rural France, it features André Heuzé fils in a shattering performance as the eponymous protagonist, a rangy, unfocused youngster who thinks, not without reason, that no one, especially his family, cares whether he lives or dies. The real-life husband-and-wife actors Henry Krauss and Charlotte Barbier-Krauss portray his parents with chilling verisimilitude.

There were plenty of other high points as well, among them the comedies “Oh! What a Nurse!” (1926), starring Charlie Chaplin’s older brother Syd in drag, and the farce “Poker Faces” (1926), with Edward Everett Horton and Laura La Plante as a married couple whose missed cues and unintended affronts provoke outright belly laughs.

And mention must certainly be made of the splendid recent restoration afforded the Japanese film “I Was Born, But…” (1932), Yasujiro Ozu’s first version of a movie he later remade with sound, and in color, as “Good Morning.” William Wyler’s “Hell’s Heroes” (1929), his last picture released as a silent, was also later remade, though by John Ford, and in a much lighter vein, as “3 Godfathers.” Here, the overt sentiment is minimized to accentuate the good deeds (saving a foundling) of bad men (bank robbers).

The festival closed as strongly as it began, with a vibrant restoration of “The Red Mark” (1928), a film so rare that the only known copy resides at the Library of Congress. Directed by James Cruze, the picture, with its unique mise-en-scène, involves an evil prison warden, an exotic maiden, a missing son, and an island on which nearly everyone, save clergy and guards, wears a number on his back and lives in fear.

This festival’s continued viability affirms that, despite the odds, silent film endures. Moreover, major studios such as Universal have made great strides in preserving and restoring silent titles within their libraries. And small home-video labels like Jeffery Masino’s Flicker Alley and Ben Model’s Undercrank Productions steadily release titles on disc ripe for rediscovery. There’s also the Silent Sunday Nights series on the cable channel TCM. So, more than most people realize, silent movies are out there—in the dark, to be sure, but also increasingly coming to light.

Mr. Mermelstein, the Journal’s classical music critic, also writes on film.

San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2024 Review: Mute Movies, Live Music

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COMMENTS

Mute movie review & film summary (2018)
Ultimately, "Mute" is a mishmash of ideas in search of a movie. Jones is clearly an ambitious and interesting filmmaker. He'll get over this misfire and possibly even complete what was once proposed as a loosely-connected trilogy. I hope it doesn't take as long for that one to get to viewers as it did with "Mute" because it doesn ...
Mute
Movie Info. In a Berlin of the future, a mute bartender's search for his missing lady-love takes him deeper and deeper into the city's criminal underbelly. Genre: Sci-fi, Mystery & thriller.
'Mute' Review: The Sound Isn't the Problem in Latest Netflix Dud
Film Review: 'Mute' Reviewed at Netflix screening room, Los Angeles, Feb. 22, 2018. Running time: 126 MIN. Production: (U.K.-Germany) A Netflix release and presentation of a Netflix Original ...
Mute (2018 film)
Mute is a 2018 neo-noir science fiction film directed by Duncan Jones, who co-wrote the script with Michael Robert Johnson.A follow-up to his 2009 film Moon, it stars Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux, Robert Sheehan, Noel Clarke, Florence Kasumba, and Dominic Monaghan, revolving around a mute bartender (Skarsgård) searching for the love of his life (Seyneb Saleh) who has ...
Mute's Ending Explained
The film is a neo-noir mystery (again like Ridley Scott's masterpiece) but told with a major villain twist at its heart and one strange finale. It's sure to cause a lot of debate, so here's our take on Mute 's ending. The main plot of Mute deals with silent bartender Leo (Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd) looking for his missing girlfriend-with-a-secret ...
Mute Movie Review
Miller Beer. Parents need to know that Mute is a stylish, engrossing film that is part black comedy, part slasher film, and part dystopian thriller, with pathos thrown into the mix as well. Long the pet project of maverick filmmaker Duncan Jones, the film was made after Netflix provided both the funds and the freedom for….
Mute Review
The movie is better when it lingers on the pair instead of Skarsgård, a fine actor reduced to a lanky frame and moist eyes. ("Keep walkin', ya lanky prick!" yells one of the bad guys, which ...
Mute (2018)
Permalink. 5/10. Promising Storyline, Messy Screenplay, Uninteresting Character. claudio_carvalho 25 February 2018. In the near future, in Berlin, the Amish bartender Leo (Alexander Skarsgård) works in a bar with his beloved girlfriend Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh) and her gay friend Luba (Robert Sheehan).
Mute
Berlin, the future, but close enough to feel familiar: In this loud, often brutal city, Leo (Alexander Skarsgård) - unable to speak from a childhood accident - searches for his missing girlfriend, the love of his life, his salvation, through dark streets, frenzied plazas, and the full spectrum of the cities shadow-dwellers. As he seeks answers, Leo finds himself mixed up with Cactus Bill ...
'Mute' Review: Duncan Jones' Futuristic Bowie Tribute
This actually describes only half the plot. "Mute" intersperses Leo's plight with the unlikely ballad of Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd) and Duck (Justin Theroux), a pair of AWOL military vets who ...
Mute review
Mute review - Duncan Jones's sci-fi thriller is a Netflix disaster. ... Not merely tonally incoherent, the film's denouement utterly defies comprehension; the barrage of inexplicable twists ...
'Mute' Review: An Immersive World, an Engaging Tale, and a Disjointed
Numerous films have tried to ape the original's style, but while Mute appears to lack Scott's budget it succeeds better than most in dropping both characters and audiences into a believable ...
Mute (2018)
MUTE (2018) The search for his missing girlfriend leads a mute man through the seedy underworld of futuristic Berlin. "Mute's" mixture of Humphrey Bogart noir and William Gibson sci-fi invites inevitable comparisons to "Blade Runner" ( review here ). So does Clint Mansell's vaguely Vangelis-like score, the retro-chic character ...
Mute (2018)
Forty years from today. A roiling city of immigrants, where East crashes against West in a science-fiction Casablanca. Leo Beiler (Skarsgard), a mute bartender has one reason and one reason only for living here, and she's disappeared. But when Leo's search takes him deeper into the city's underbelly, an odd pair of American surgeons (led by ...
'Mute' Tells a Sci-Fi Story That Could Have Benefited From Less to Say
Mute, the latest film from Duncan Jones (Moon), finds itself excitedly wandering off course into a dazzling future world all too often, full of things to see and say but awkwardly unsure how to speak the words. Though it carefully builds a setting and characters full of intriguing potential, the script can't contain itself, losing concentration ...
Mute is a flabbergasting futuristic dud from the director of Moon and
Availability. Netflix February 23. Duncan Jones has shown himself to be a very capable director of short-story-ish sci-fi in films like Moon and Source Code, but he tests the limits of human ...
Mute (2018)
Mute - Movie review by film critic Tim Brayton Passionate filmmakers are good, because without passion you have hackwork. And so, QED, passion projects are good, because they are the place where filmmakers devote the greatest part of their energy, creativity, and soul. ... Mute even seemed to be connected in the writer-director's head with Moon ...
Watch Mute
Mute. Mute (Trailer) More Details. Watch offline. Download and watch everywhere you go. Genres. Sci-Fi Movies, British, Film Noir, Thriller Movies, Mystery ... Go behind the scenes of Netflix TV shows and movies, see what's coming soon and watch bonus videos on Tudum.com. Questions? Call 1-844-505-2993. FAQ; Help Center; Account; Media Center ...
Movie Review: 'Mute' Is A Quickly Forgettable Film That Lacks Any Real
Movie Review: 'Mute' Is A Quickly Forgettable Film That Lacks Any Real Substance. 2 Comments. Posted February 26th, 2018 by Tony Schaab - Senior Editor
Mute movie review: Netflix's streak of disappointing sci-fi films
Mute seems to have all the right ingredients — an impressive cast, futuristic noir visual palette, neon-lit visual effects. However, the film is let down by monotonous character dynamics, a dull and meandering investigation, bland usage of potentially cool production design and a truly mind-numbing big reveal.
Mute Review
What Mute lacks in originality, it makes up for in risky storytelling and unpredictably grimy plot decisions. ... Reviews Videos ReelBlend Superheroes Voices Wrestling Movies TV Streaming Theme ...
Movie Review: "Mute" And Its Confusing Message
By that presentation, the film admits it is impossible to be both Amish and mute. Yes, he functioned well before, but he was always going to get dragged in. Multiple instances demonstrate futuristic impediments that Leo would easily overcome if he could speak (he can ask a librarian to find the phone books for him, or speak his phone number ...
'Mute Witness'
The 1995 horror movie Mute Witness has found a whole new audience here in 2024, with Shudder finally bringing the cat-and-mouse thriller to streaming earlier this month. Additionally, Arrow Video ...
San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2024 Review: Mute Movies, Live ...
The catholic choices—movies not just from the U.S., but from Europe and Asia, too—proved especially appealing this year, with principal credit going, as usual, to artistic director Anita Monga.
The Mute
Visit the movie page for 'The Mute' on Moviefone. Discover the movie's synopsis, cast details and release date. Watch trailers, exclusive interviews, and movie review. Your guide to this cinematic ...

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