Mute Review

Mute is a rather odd film in that it feels almost like it's two separates narratives squished together in an awkward way. The main story follows a mute man as he bartends and cares for his girlfriend. One day his girlfriend randomly vanishes and he begins searching for her in this futuristic world. On the side of that with small crosses and build up throughout is a man attempting to get legal papers in order to leave the country. That man runs along some moral lines while just attempting to get out of there. This role is taken by Paul Rudd as Cactus Bill and he's very different here while still being strangely charming.

This latter story was actually rather interesting, at least towards the end and the whole thing feels as though it didn't come together quite properly. Almost as though there was too much story and that was shown in the overly long run time. So many sequences felt elongated and to the point they wouldn't end. They could have greatly condensed things as the pacing felt slow while lacking excitement. It was just some guy walking around writing on paper while other people wondered what was wrong with him as they have the technology to fix that in the setting.

Mute did look great, the cyberpunk styled visuals mixed with some elements of today worked well. It was fancy, yet still somewhat grimy. I'm not sure the setting greatly improved the narrative however as that type of story could have been told at any point.

I suppose it enhanced what wasn't too exciting of a story by giving something enticing to look at. Even then, nothing in the backdrops was too distinct. The technology was fine, but the world wasn't anything amazing aside from a couple glory shots with the rest being rather concrete based. The acting was fine, I suppose for a mute it was alright with the others being fine.

The Conclusion

The strength of Mute was towards the ending, it came together well there with hints of what could happen throughout. The journey there was however rather long and almost tedious. Nothing really happened and while plot details were handled, they could have been quicker. Pacing was definitely an issue here as it became boring at the start and I paused halfway through thinking it was about wrapped up.

It took some neat turns into what was an interesting conclusion, but having a focus on that story more than the other would have been better. Some motivations were odd, aspects made sense though could have used development and it was weird to see almost two separate while somewhat tied together films present in one overly long venture.

Mute Review at Home with Streamed Viewing

Rating Overall: 4.0