Mute Witness

This article is about the 1994 thriller motion picture. For the Robert L. Pike novel on which the motion picture "Bullitt" is based, see Bullitt.

Mute Witness
Directed by	Anthony Waller
Produced by	Anthony Waller/Alexander Buchman/Norbert Soentgen, Aleksandr Atanesyan/Grigori Ryazhsky(co-producer), Werner König/Pieter Lony(associate producer), Marina Kapustina(line producer), Richard Claus(executive producer)
Written by	Anthony Waller
Music by	Wilbert Hirsch
Cinematography	Thomas L. Callaway
Editing by	Kert Vandermeulen
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Classics/Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International/Columbia TriStar Home Video/LK-TEL
Release date(s)	1994
Running time	95 min
Country	USA/UK/Russia/Germany
Language	English/Russian

Mute Witness, is a 1994 thriller/horror shot in Moscow, Russia written, directed and produced by Anthony Waller. Although made in 1994, it was not released in the USA until the fall of 1995 (with the UK not seeing it till the following year). Known for having Alec Guinness in cameo as a Mystery Guest Star along with a mostly European cast.

An American remake of the film is scheduled for 2011.

Plot

Billy (Marina Zudina), an FX make up artist who does not have the physical ability to speak, is in Moscow working on a low budget slasher film directed by her sister's boyfriend Andy (Evan Richards). On one particular night Billy returns to the set to fetch a piece of equipment for the next day's shoot when she is accidentally locked in the studio. Being unable to speak but having the ability to communicate with her sister Karen (Fay Ripley), Billy makes several telephone calls but is interrupted when she discovers a small film crew working after hours to shoot a cheap porno film. Watching unseen Billy is amused until the performed sex becomes sadistic. When a masked actor pulls out a knife and stabs the actress (Olga Tolstetskaya), Billy reacts and is discovered. She flees pursued by the homicidal film crew.

Billy narrowly escapes and manages to tell her story to her sister and the Police, however the snuff film crew manages to convince the authorities that the onscreen 'murder' was a cinematic special effect. The events however bring forward Larsen (Oleg Yankovsky), an undercover detective who is tracking the activities of the covert film crew and their connection to a shadowy criminal mastermind called The Reaper. The Reaper (Alec Guinness) is a financier of an international underground snuff ring. He tells the criminal film crew that Billy is a witness and must be eliminated thus motivating the snuff film director, his thug assistant and a host of subsidiary criminals to retrieve a missing computer disc from her and dispatch her. As more and more factions get involved in killing and saving Billy the action become wild and fantastic and hard to discern what's real from movie magic.

Cast

Actor / Actress	Character
Alec Guinness	The Reaper
Fay Ripley	Karen Hughes
Oleg Yankovsky(as Oleg Jankowskij)	Larsen
Marina Zudina (as Marina Sudina)	Billy Hughes
Evan Richards	Andy Clarke
Igor Volkov	Arkadi
Sergei Karlenkov	Lyosha
Nikolai Pastukhov	Janitor
Valeri Barakhtin (as Valeri Barahtin)	Mitja
Sascha Buchman	Alex
Olga Tolstetskaya	Actress
Denis Karasyov	Fake policeman
Igor Ilyin	Fake policeman
Oleg Abramov	Double
Vladimir Salnikov	Lab assistant
Konstantin Sitnikov	Angry props manager
Norbert Soentgen	Peeping Tom

References

IMDb page – [1]

External elements

• Mute Witness at the Internet Movie Database