Dead Silence (1997)

(On TV, November 2021) As far as low-budget made-for-TV thrillers go, there’s something halfway interesting in Dead Silence. After all, this is about psychopathic criminals taking a busload of deaf children hostage in a farm, as the police surround the area and negotiations begin. The disability angle adds interest to what would otherwise be a rather run-of-the-mill thriller. Casting adds some more as well, with veteran James Garner playing the lead hostage negotiator and Marlee Matlin as a schoolteacher. The low-budget imperatives of the film create a nicely restrained setting around the farm. The last element of note is a wild third-act swerve that creates more questions than it answers, but makes for a sudden late burst of energy in a film that needed it. The result is still not all that good, but it is not quite as bland as it could have been — the proof being that Dead Silence is still playing on TV twenty-five years later, even if on a Canadian channel focused on accessibility issues.