Mute

70s Retro: Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux in Mute

Duncan Jones' Mute was almost universally reviled when it was released on Netflix in 2018, but I found the film to have more than a few redeeming qualities. Certainly the film fizzles as a mystery or thriller. The main plot and look of the film are overly beholden to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Set in a dystopian Berlin a few years hence, Alexander Skarsgard stars as a mute Amish(!) bartender searching for a girlfriend who has vanished. He scours the demimonde to fitful effect.

However, the mute bartender's quest is intercut with the misdoings of two skeevy American surgeons played by Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux. It is this sinister friendship and its connection with the bartender that is the most compelling aspect of Mute. The relationship between the two is a riff on that of Hawkeye and Trapper John's in Robert Altman's MASH, if the two had gone to seed. Martinis are present and accounted for. Mute's two have nicknames, Cactus Bill and Donald Duck, that riff on the Americana of the nicknames of the duo in MASH. Rudd's handlebar mustache even seems like a tribute to Elliott Gould's facial hair in the earlier film. Both Rudd and Theroux have a blast with their roles with Rudd, in particular, seeming to revel in escaping his nice guy persona. Sam Rockwell appears in a few puckish cameos. I will make no great claims for Mute, but the performances of Rudd and Theroux lift the film above mediocrity.