Hear No Evil

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.

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.

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.

to me,this is just a standard suspense thriller/crime drama.although,in reality,it isn't really thrilling or suspenseful.in fact,it could be a TV episode from a crime show.except for the bit of nudity.you have your usual cast of characters,criminals looking for something,murders,witnesses,plot twists that aren't.i like Marlee Matlin and D.B. Sweeney,but i didn't sense any chemistry between them.the story itself is,like i said,fairly generic,and uninvolving,with a few things that don't add up.in other words,logic gaps.to be fair there are a few tense moments,adding up to maybe five minutes or so of the total running time.otherwise,it's slow and yawn inducing.for me,Hear no Evil is a 4/10

***SPOILERS**** Trying to copy the 1967 classic "Wait Until Dark" about a blind young woman trapped in her apartment with these three hoods trying to find the "dope" that's hidden there. "Hear no Evil" is about a deft young woman who unknowingly has on her a valuable 4th century b.c. Greek coin worth a million dollars. With a number of psychos trying to get it, the coin, off her but that's where the comparison between the two movies ends.

Opra freak police let. Brock, Martin Sheen, who looking forward to a hefty retirement package has one of his "busts" on the street T.W ,Billie Worley,get off easy if he gets him this coin to take care of his future ventures as a man of music and leisure.

After murdering the museum guard T.W takes off with the coin but Let. Brock trying to double-cross him, and keep T.W from blackmailing him, has T.W run over and killed only to find out that the coin isn't on him. T.W's contact and friend news reporter Mick O'Malley, John C. McGilney, is given the coin to hold for him for safekeeping. Mick then hides it in his hearing-impaired girlfriends Jillian Shanahan, Marlee Matin, vibration activated beeper. Just as Let. Brock and his men raid his apartment.

O'Malley getting worked over by Let. Brock, at the police station and in his squad car, is given 24 hours to come up with the coin or else. In a last desperate act of survival Mick get's his friend restaurant owner Ben Kendell, O.B. Sweeny, to lend him his car and $1,000.00 in cash to get out of town. The car later explodes and crashes into the river as it's crossing a bridge with O'Malley in it.

With the Greek coin nowhere to be found a determined Let. Brock keys in on innocent and unsuspecting Jillian as the only person alive who either knows where the coin is or has it in her apartment. Since that's the last place where the now obviously deceased O'Malley was. Up to that point the movie "Hear no Evil" is a fast and what looks like a spine tingling thriller, a lot like the classic "Wait Until Dark".But then when both Ben and Jillian get together in an effort to stymie Let. Brock from getting the stolen coin the movie starts to go downhill fast.

Besides Let. Brock a new villain shows up looking for the coin. Which by his appearance, and having a wool cap pulled over his head, isn't at all Let. Brock and also isn't working for or with him, who can that man be? Almost strangling Jillian's room-mate Grace, Christina Carlisi, the black clad intruder is on Jillian's and her new boyfriend's Ben trail for the rest of the movie. Even after Let. Brock is arrested and put behind bars by the F.B.I who together with Jillian & Ben set a trap for him.

The "suprise ending" is anything but surprising since it's obvious, if you've seen enough whodunits, who the killer is. It has Jillian running for her life from the killer all through the house that she and Ben are staying in, at his mom's in the country. Jillian outsmarts and does in the killer just as he not only revealed who he is but after he got his hands on the coin that he was after to get.

Plodding and unconvincing "Hear no Evil" has no real suspense or terror in it. A competent, but all too brief, performance by Martin Sheen, as the brutal and utterly ruthless Det. Brock. Still he's out of the picture and the story some half-way thorough the movie. It's after that the the film seems to try to compensate for him by having the unknown, dressed in black, killer put on center stage which sinks the film. You start to think why him, when you find out who he is, of all people when he could have gotten the coin just by asking for it from Jillian? Did he hit himself on the head so hard that it's caused his thought process to severely malfunction?

The real life hearing impaired Marlee Matlin did her best trying to look and act scared and terrified. As she's chased all throughout the film by Det. Brock and his goons. As well as the mysterious tall dark and deadly stranger. It also good to see for once a deft person who's not only played by a deft actor, or actress, but also able to talk as well as communicate without almost exclusively using sign language.