The Silencers

A story with aliens who have nothing else better to do than to come banging each other here on our planet Earth. To be able to distinguish them, the good guys look like us, the others, the bad ones, have black eyes and are ugly. There's some tension in the tracking scenes, the stunts did a good job. The script is almost bulls..t.

Remember pre-1997 when the Men In Black were dark mysterious shady characters who were better suited for horror movies than anything else? The days before Will Smith quipped his way through a generic sci-fi trilogy?

Well here we have said Men In Black, except these guys are the aliens and aligning with some parts of the government in scheme to bring more of their kind to earth through a portal and stuff.....

So this is the very definition of 1990's b-movie cheese. Car chases, gun fights and all the usual cliches.

Along for the ride we have another alien of a different species who teams with the secret service to take them down. Said alien is played by Dennis Christopher and that's just weird. For those unfamiliar with Christopher he's generally a weedy, sneaky, weak character and has been in movies such as the original It (1990) and Fade To Black (1980). He's a great actor but seeing him in such a role was odd and more than a little questionable.

Not great but not entirely awful The Silencers is an interesting enough take your brain out movie, probably best you take your expectations out as well.

The Good:

Old school cheese

The Bad:

Dennis Christopher in an action role is a bizzare thing

Not constructed very well

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Mysterious long blonde haired guys were a big thing in the 90's

Jack Scalia headlines in this somewhat low brow effort from the PM guys as a government agent who goes head to head against a Men In Black plot to bring forth unto our world, a conquering army via an inter-dimensional portal. Sounds bad eh? Well, luckily for our hero, he is aided by a friendly alien named Comdor who has been sent through the same portal in order to close it forever. Yes, it's a buddy movie at heart with Scalia as the hard as nails and down to earth 'cop' and Dennis Christopher playing the naive yet charming alien who eventually, naturally wins over his new found partners hard exterior and warms his heart etc.....(the sort of plot we've seen a zillion times before in fact).

What can I say? Sadly, this turns out to be a strictly by the numbers affair and is not helped any by some particularly groan inducing attempts at light hearted humour. It's doubly a shame as the notion of covert agencies such as the infamous MIB's provide such wonderful scope for storytelling; Alas, it was sadly mostly squandered here and cheap special effects scenes such as the actual portal itself hardly help matters any.

Having said the above, all is not entirely lost for this is after all a PM Production and if there's one thing that you can always count on from a PM flick it's plenty of crazy action scenes! Sure enough this delivers insane stunts and action aplenty from insane freeway chases to some well handled shoot outs.

For fellow PM fans it's certainly worth a peek but don't expect too much - you'll likely be somewhat underwhelmed.

The sci-fi concept of 'The Silencers' did have a lot of potential to me when I picked this film out. A film about the enigmatic men in black? A story about aliens trying to sabotage our world politically and economically using "disguises"? And all of this sprinkled with a lot of action? The film's concept sounded awesome, even if the film's rating here on IMDB (less than 5.0/10 as of March, 2025) was poor. But a poor rating never stopped me from watching a film which interested me, that's for sure.

I was certainly disappointed after watching 'The Silencers' though. The writing is actually awful, despite the potential of the concept. There are as many plot holes in this film as there are craters on the moon. But there are some positives as well. Some action scenes are entertaining enough, even if they lack any substance. And the handsome Jack Scalia does a good job of portraying the protagonist, even if he had to work with a mediocre script.

This had the potential to be the spiritual successor to John Carpenter's masterfully though-provoking film, 'They Live' (1988). But what we got instead was nothing of the sort. It's as if the film-makers of 'The Silencers' never wanted to create something other than a purely average action film with a little sci-fi thrown in.

"The Silencers" is one of the most ambitious (and enjoyable) low-budget DTVs I've ever seen. Jack Scalia and Dennis Christopher are good, and the film is highlighted by a nearly-10-minute-long chase sequence involving a fuel tanker hauling mysterious cargo, numerous military and pedestrian vehicles, and a helicopter (the fate of which you will be amazed by!) The music by Louis Febre is very good as well, and while the effects of the subway collision are clearly models, the rest of that action sequence makes up for it.

The funny thing is, however, for a film that has an anti-violence message, it sure does have a lot of violence. Comdor (Christopher) explains to Scalia's son that there are better things to do with one's life than desire to play the role of action hero, and that violence isn't always the solution, then the two infiltrate the villain's secret complex and have a huge gun battle.

Still, a rousing adventure/sci-fi flick that was good enough for me to order a copy.

THE SILENCERS: 4.5/5