Danger Sign

I wondered if this was a TV movie where it was filmed with spiced-up language and nudity for the European market. It comes off like a Lifetime TV movie pre-Lifetime.

Marlee Matlin, Martin Sheen, D. B. Sweeney, and John C. McGinley star in "Hear No Evil," a 1993 film. After a museum robbery during which a rare coin owned by Alexander the Great is stolen, a journalist (McGinley) is close to a huge story and expose about the robbery.

A corrupt police officer (Sheen) believes McGinley has the coin and begins to terrorize him and everyone around him, including the journalist's best friend (Sweeney) and a young deaf woman (Matlin).

This movie quickly descended down the path of a screamathon, with Matlin and Sweeney in all kinds of danger from various people.

The talent involved was on a much higher level than the script, which was derivative with a love story that wasn't particularly believable, since we didn't know the characters well and they knew each other less.

I give Marlee Matlin a huge amount of credit. Though this film isn't an indication of it, she's found her way into mainstream work despite her deafness, even appearing on Dancing with the Stars. A remarkable woman who deserved much better than this material.

With it's convoluted plot, hackneyed script and not so surprising 'twist' ending, this movie is not one of the best thrillers to come out of Hollywood in the past ten years.

Marlee Matlin seems to be sleep walking through her role as Jillian Shanahan, a deaf woman who is unknowingly given a rare stolen coin and is now being pursued by the various parties who want to get their hands on it. Martin Sheen as the corrupt policeman Lt. Brock does a play it by numbers bad guy routine, while the usually good D.B. Sweeney as the insomniac restauranteur/rock climber Ben Kendal appears to be wondering how he got mixed up in all this, both figuratively and literally.

That is not to say it doesn't have its moments. The scene where Jillian's friend is attacked is quite chilling and the part where Jillian teaches Ben to swear in sign language is cute. And Ben's morning grumpiness definitely struck a chord with a fellow insomniac.

But over all the whole thing doesn't quite gel. Matlin and Sweeney have little chemistry and their characters seem to fall for each other a bit too quickly to be plausible. You have to wonder why Ben would go to such lengths for a person he hardly knows, while Jillian is too much the damsel in distress, even though she's supposed to be this fiesty, independent woman who has risen above her disability. Sheen comes off the worst as the bad-guy cop who beats up suspects while listening to opera. His character has no shades of grey and is just your standard authoritarian thug who deserves his comeuppance. The funeral scene is embarrassingly trite and the whole FBI sting sequence is corny and contrived, while you can just see the 'surprise' ending coming a mile a way. Watch it once then forget about it.

I thought this was a charming romantic movie, showing just how easy it is to find love if you happen to be a successful personal trainer, and a successful restaurant owner, both of whom are conveniently single, and share an acquaintance who happens to be "killed" over a stolen coin which just happens to be hotly and murderously pursued. Just get thrown together running from killers, and suddenly - true love! Who knew it could be so simple?

I imagine that for people like Marlee Matlin, they simply don't get a lot of different roles to choose from, and have to pick the very little they are given, even if the work they are offered simply isn't good. "Hear No Evil", as you might have guessed, isn't a good movie. In fairness to Matlin, she does give it all for this role, but this role - as well as the rest of the script - is not very well written. In the first part of the movie, we learn next to nothing about her character, so it's hard to sympathize with her character when the bad things start happening to her. It feels at times, not just in the first part of the movie, that this movie is missing a lot of scenes that would explain a lot of things, even though the movie runs 97 minutes. What we end up with is a movie that seems to have an insulting attitude towards the audience's intelligence. The movie is not thrilling, nor does it give any interesting insight towards people who are deaf. A big disappointment.

This movie was a bit on the so-so side. A thriller that has received a bad rap. But on the other hand, it had a little educational, and humorous side to it. Marlee Matlin, one of my favorite hearing impaired actresses did a spectacular role in "Children of a lesser god", did an O.K. job in this movie, though her speech is impaired, I can understand some of the things she's saying. D.B. Sweeney, from "Memphis Belle", and the short lived series "Strange Luck", could have put a little pep in his step. The best part of the movie was when the couple got to "get it on" he learned a few words about sexual intimacy in sign language. The part where she did the sign for "erection" was a riot! That was one of the bright spots in the movie. The plot was rather typical, and the outcome was a bit of a no brainer, the stars deserve better, this movie however was no exception. Rating 2 out of 5 stars.