Product Description

Set against the rolling hills of the Wild West, a band of cowboys cuts through the dust, selling spirits, medicine and prostitutes t o the locals. A lone rider, Prescott Roe (Richard Harris) steals proprietor Eamon McCree's (Alan Bates) half-breed daughter. With Eamon and his son Reeves (Dermot Mulroney) in pursuit, Prescott delivers the kidnapped woman to his son Talbot (River Phoenix). Des pite her beauty, he can't put the past behind him and seeks a new life on his untamed frontier.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67160 in DVD
• Brand: LIONS GATE HOME ENT.
• Released on: 2005-05-03
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 102 minutes

Customer Reviews

Phenomenal ghost story. Very theatrical in tone.
Sam Shepard, the writer/director of "Silent Tongue," is one of the big names in contemporary American theatre. So it comes as no surprise that his two feature films--also, "Far North"--have a distinctly theatrical tone. General audiences may not have a taste for this, but Shepard's films do reward additional viewings, and both have grown on me in a big way.

"Silent Tongue" is a ghost story which uncovers a disturbing sickness at the heart of the Old West. River Phoenix becomes mentally unhinged when his Native American bride dies in childbirth. This sends his father, Richard Harris, on a journey to try and find another woman for his son. Exhibiting tragically limited imagination, the father returns to the traveling circus where he traded horses for the first woman, and he attempt a second bargain for the woman's sister. In the end, the sister must confront the dead woman's ghost, and we learn the dark secret of their past.

Phoenix is eerily convincing as the mad Talbot Roe, and Richard Harris is uncharacteristic low-key as the world-weary Prescott Roe. My only complaint is Dermot Mulroney who is miscast and unable to make his character's diction convincing.

Unbelievable, NO, BELIEVEABLE
One of the best. I've read the critics' reviews of Sam Shepard's directorial effort, hogwash. If you don't like what Shepard did in this one, you've missed the point of the movie. You can't roller-skate in a buffalo herd! There are two tragedies to this film: one, it has gone so unnoticed as a whole; two, Sheila Tousey has gone so unnoticed. I believe this is the greatest Native American actress. Couple this with Mr. Bates, Harris, Mulroney, Pheonix, Shepard and Ms. Arredondo, and it was a loser in any way??????

Do not buy - 2.35:1 image is cropped to 1.33:1
Regional encoding is a sly device. People in the U.S., for instance, who want to see Sam Shepard's 1994 film 'Silent Tongue' will have to watch this bottom-of-the-barrel, pan-and-scan frisbee thrown out by Lions Gate. Meanwhile, folks in Germany have a decent 2.35:1 transfer with Region 2 encoding, which excludes most interested U.S. consumers.

Lions Gate. These folks are getting worse, more brazen in their lack of integrity. I mean, consider their cynical chop-and-dub job on the new release 'High Tension,' or their heavy promotion and wide distribution of garbage like 'House of 1000 Corpses' and 'Confidence' and simultaneous neglect of acclaimed films like 'Stevie' and 'May.'

The expense associated with giving consumers a 2.35:1 transfer is only marginally above that of a 1.33:1 transfer. The Lions Gate people are clearly bottom-line bean-counters who we must all hope will go bankrupt and disappear into a pile of ashes, if there's any justice in the world. Lot 47, Cowboy Pictures... it's the good guys who usually die, while rotters like Lions Gate live on with an undeserved longevity.