Blast of Silence

1961

1h 17m

Crime

Drama

List

83%

Tomatometer

18 Reviews

82%

Popcornmeter

500+ Ratings

A hit man (Allen Baron) comes to New York to kill a gangster and gets the gun from a big guy (Larry Tucker) with a beard.

Richard Brody

New Yorker

This compact and forceful low-budget film noir ... compresses a week in a hit man's bitter life into a dazzlingly brisk yet richly nuanced seventy-seven minutes.

Jan 14, 2013

Full Review

Eric Henderson

Slant Magazine

The tension doesn't so much revolve around the antihero's job, redemption, or ultimate fate but rather the disconnect between its mundane milieu and the grandiose flourishes they're meant to convey.

Rated: 2/4

Apr 16, 2008

Full Review

J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

With its finger-popping jazz score and beat-inspired interior monologue (in second person, no less), this might seem comical if it weren't so rooted in existential dread.

Jan 22, 2008

Full Review

Shelagh Rowan-Legg

ScreenAnarchy

The kind of magic that come out of this scrappy indie filmmaker is fully on display in Blast of Silence. Both an homage to and perhaps something of a criticism of noir and its cynicism, a distillation of its essential components into a fractal poem.

Rated: 4/5

Jan 16, 2024

Full Review

Michael J. Casey

Michael J. Cinema

A practically perfect take on the detached killer who is looking for a way out, seeing a chance for connection, and having everything he has known, hoped for, and dreamed about crumble away for no other reason than that how it goes, baby boy.

Rated: 5/5

Dec 26, 2023

Full Review

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

You don't know Film Noir until you've seen "Blast Of Silence." Hard boiled.

Rated: A+

Jan 18, 2022

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Bill B

Definitely low budget and deserving credit for what it was able to achieve, but there isn't a lot of story or dialogue here, except for the voice-over narration. It is mostly the noir atmosphere; its shadowy bleakness is what will remain with you.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

06/06/24

Full Review

Patrick V

A mini masterpiece on all levels. The tale of a dysfunctional hitman on the job in New York. Allen Baron should have made a bigger splash ( no pun intended) in the Movie world after this. Actor, writer & Director. What a bucket of talent this guy was. This movie is VERY bleak and locations are bleaker. This is not " Naked City" New York, more " On the Bowery" New York. The Cinematography is glorious and surreal. Made on the cusp of the 1960s you can feel,movie wise ,whats coming just around the corner

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/30/23

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S R

Unique film noir, but not one I need to see again. Props for its day. Saw on TCM.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

05/09/23

Full Review

delysid d

strangling a fat guy to death who raises rats

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

12/17/21

Full Review

Audience Member

Unusually effective pulp-noir thriller, written and directed by its star Allen Baron. The story is simple - a lone hitman drives into New York for one last job, but gets sidetracked by romance, and is also betrayed by a fat hoodlum, whom he kills. Shot in grainy black-and-white during a bitterly cold winter, there is considerable beauty in the snatched sequences of early-60s Manhattan. Baron has something of DeNiro in his terse silence, and the occasional slightly clunky supporting performances don't spoil what is a very well-directed B-picture. Only Lionel Stander's insistent voice-over and the occasionally hectoring jazz score work against the melancholy that courses through the movie.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A minor work made by a guy who knows his stuff. Traveled down the way The Asphalt Jungle and The Third Man had paved for it, all the while paving a new road for noir.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

Full Review

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Allen Baron

Director

Allen Baron

Frank Bono

Molly McCarthy

Lorrie

Larry Tucker

Big Ralph

Allen Baron

Writer

Merrill S. Brody

Producer

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Synopsis

A hit man (Allen Baron) comes to New York to kill a gangster and gets the gun from a big guy (Larry Tucker) with a beard.

Director: Allen Baron
Producer: Merrill S. Brody
Screenwriter: Allen Baron, Waldo Salt
Genre: Crime, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (DVD): Apr 15, 2008
Runtime: 1h 17m
Sound Mix: Mono
Aspect Ratio: 35mm