Jon Bernthal sure knows how to kill people. From “The Walking Dead” to “Sicario” to Marvel‘s upcoming “The Punisher” series, there’s just something about Bernthal as an actor that suggests that he’s both capable of and inclined to beat you to within an inch of your life. And with “Pilgrimage,” his latest film, hitting the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend, it looks like we’ll soon have another ultra-violent Bernthal role to add to our canon. I mean, his character’s name is simply The Mute. If that doesn’t scream onscreen brutality, I don’t know what does.
“Pilgrimage,” which also stars Tom Holland (“The Lost City of Z,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming“), is the latest feature film by Irish writer-director Brendan Muldowney, whose 2013 film “Love Eternal” was a popular title at genre film festivals that year. Medieval thrillers have been popular items on the indie film scene in recent years, with both Dominic Sena‘s “Season of the Witch” and Christopher Smith‘s “Black Death“, delivering as-promised thrills. Here’s hoping “Pilgrimage” can be another worthy addition to this lower tier of swordplay and religious underpinnings.
Here’s the full plot synopsis for Muldowney’s film:
A small band of Catholic monks keep to a solemn routine on a remote Irish coast. Then a stranger arrives. He comes wearing the white robes of the Cistercian order, bearing papers, and demanding the unthinkable. The Irish have no room to argue. “Rome has spoken,” says the Cistercian. “There is no debate.” From this foreboding prologue, director Brendan Muldowney creates an extraordinary period drama crossed with action-laced road movie.
Travelling through a 13th-century Irish countryside filled with warring clans and Norman conquerors, the monks bring their land’s most sacred relic to Rome. The pilgrimage offers the group’s youngest member a profound lesson, one of religious fervor, and the savagery of men who see themselves as soldiers with a cause, who train their ambition on a single, powerful object.
“Pilgimage” will have its world premiere as part of the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday, April 23 at the Regal Cinemas Battery Park. The film will be distributed by XYZ Films and hit theaters and VOD on August 11. [Yahoo! Movies]