Silent Night

SILENT NIGHT (2023) ** Joel Kinnaman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Kid Cudi. John Woo's disappointing action revenge flick with Kinnaman seeking vengeance on gangbangers who accidentally killed his son on Christmas has so much potential but is squandered in its hole-laden script by Robert Archer Lynn (i.e. Namely the sadly misused talent of Sandino Moreno as the spouse who basically just passively cries while her husband for months on end is holed up in their basement preparing for war). While Kinnaman's character is literally silenced due to his being shot in the throat renders him mute and his impressive implosive performance can't make up for the pedestrian trope-laden story (i.e. The police not doing their job). A few decent set pieces sadly cannot make up for a half-baked update on DEATH WISH and its ilk.

Watching John Woo's "Silent Night" and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm kind of bored.

Also, the lack of dialogue from ANYONE is just weird. Sure, he can't talk due to being shot (it's in the trailer, hardly a spoiler) but the others haven't been shot. Having no one else speak just takes away the impact of the MC losing his own voice.

I'm also struggling with the fact this guy has zero training but thinks he is going to take on the whole criminal underworld - training himself with YouTube videos in his basement.

I guess, all I'm saying is, if you want a decent "You shot my kid, I must kill you all" revenge film - check out Kevin Bacon's "Death Sentence".

Silent Night is a new action film directed by John Woo, director of Broken Arrow and Face/Off.

When a father (Joel Kinnaman) and his son accidentally become victims of a criminal gang shooting on Christmas Eve, the son is affected. The father goes after the criminals, but is also shot and his vocal cords are activated.

He can no longer talk, but he wants revenge. So he begins to train himself to take impossible Christmas revenge on the gang members who took his son and his voice away.

With Silent Night, John Woo makes a directorial comeback after 20 years, because he has no longer controlled American action films since his 2003 film Paycheck. John Woo has often made his private action films unique in special ways. He now tries to do the same again by using almost no real dialogue in this film, apart from some background dialogue from music and news radio.

Joel Kinnaman has to work more with facial expressions and body postures to act. He does this well, but if there had been a little more dialogue at the beginning of the film, the story could have been a bit clearer. Due to the lack of speech, the film can sometimes remain unclear. Catalina Sandino Moreno plays his wife and mother of the child who died. She knows how to portray a good, supporting role. Unfortunately, she fades into the background halfway through the film, during the father's revenge campaign. Kid Cudi plays a cop in the film who tries to investigate the attack on the father and son, but he still comes across as more in another film. If they had left his character out of the movie, the movie could have been a bit shorter and clearer.

The story remains a standard revenge action film, in which characters, for personal reasons, want to take revenge on people who have harmed or taken something away from them. This film is somewhat reminiscent of John Wick's Deadpool, only with less humor or similar action.

There are entertaining action scenes in this film, but unfortunately they are not that special and not at all for a Jon Woo action comeback. The action scenes do have some creative moments with good visual effects. Unfortunately, not all of the effects even look significant. Some explosions seem less realistic. The blood that characters get during the action scenes also sometimes looks more like fake CGI blood than it looks real.

This is not up to John Woo's talent. I found the material entirely like a one-trick pony. All rage, and sadness, verging on insanity, without any real character development, or pathos. There is nothing in the lead character's story that allows the audience to sympathize with him, other than the loss of his son. There are no positive events to draw us into the story. Instead, we are faced with an ever-increasing level of horror, rage, and madness. Woo has been known to give violence an almost ballet type of choreography (Bullet time slow motion) but that is not what we are seeing here. With the rage of the main character, we are faced with depression, rage, and madness which causes an ever-increasing degree of violence that continues to the very end of the film. This film should have ratings of extreme violence attached. While I watched the entire film I was left with a deep feeling of disatisfaction when it was over. It almost feels like the film was only part of a story.

I hate to say, I'm overall disappointed. I really wanted to enjoy this but it fell flat for me. I figured John Woo going back to straight up action will be a treat. Instead of using the idea of a dialogueless action flick as an interesting device he creates a very drab story that is less than appealing. He makes little effort in trying interesting ways to propel the story within the confines he set up. It's like he never watched a silent movie and saw how you can tell a compelling story with minimal dialogue. He just leans on lame cliches. Also there's too many logical errors, even for an action movie. And Joel Kinnaman, who I normally like, makes a less than appealing protagonist. Even without speaking his character seems annoying. An unfortunate misfire from something that had a lot of potential.