PLOT: After his son is killed in a drive-by shooting, a grieving father (Joel Kinnaman) spends a year training himself to be an unstoppable killer so that he can take yuletide vengeance on the men responsible.
REVIEW: Silent Night marks John Woo’s first American movie since 2003’s Paycheck, a now-forgotten sci-fi action film that starred Ben Affleck. Since then, he’s focused on the Chinese market, making the wildly successful two-part Red Cliff and the less successful romantic epic The Crossing. He also dipped his toe back into the heroic bloodshed genre he made famous with 2017’s Manhunt, which, despite some virtuoso action, played more like one of his big-budget American movies than his old-school Hong Kong ones.
In that vein, Silent Night is a return to an older-fashioned kind of John Woo film. Sporting a thriftier budget and an agreeably simple concept, Woo has the opportunity here to revisit some of his favorite themes. This includes the bond between father and son and the brotherhood that can emerge between cop and criminal when faced with a genuinely evil opponent. But, the big selling point here, besides the Christmas setting, is that Woo tries to do all this without any spoken dialogue.
Indeed, Silent Night is… silent… at least in terms of dialogue. While a gimmick, it’s helped by the fact that in the first scene of the movie, Kinnaman’s character, Godluck, is shot in the neck and no longer can speak. Yet, the premise is stretched during the first, story-driven half of the movie when Kinnaman’s supportive wife, Zaya (played by Catalina Sandino Moreno), stays silent, as does the nice-guy cop played by Scott Mescudi (aka Kid Cudi). The script by Robert Archer Lynn cheats a bit by having some information relayed via radio reports or by a gimmick where Godlock and his wife communicate via text.
It wears thin in the first half of the movie, but by the second, action-driven half, it starts to work much better. Kinnaman and the bad guys all let their guns do the talking, and this is when Woo’s prowess as an action director starts to shine. While Chad Stahelski’s John Wick movies owe a lot to Woo’s style, the director himself didn’t opt to make a John Wick-style movie. Kinnaman’s character is a construction worker and an amateur as far as killing goes. Most of the first half focuses on him training himself to shoot guns and fight and drive a Mustang like Steve McQueen. But Woo also shows him as being out of his depth when the violence starts, giving the action a much scrappier feel than we’re used to with Woo.
This aspect works well and gives Kinnaman more to work with. You get the feeling that his character’s mission of vengeance is ultimately a suicidal one, giving the film a tragic aspect that suits the grim Christmas setting. Given all the carnage, it’s a blue Christmas for everyone here, or maybe a red one. The film is built around Kinnaman, who’s in virtually every scene, and it’s a terrific role for him. Kid Cudi also has a cool role as a stock Woo character, being the tough cop who’d rather help the avenger he’s ostensibly trying to stop, and when Woo pulls out his signature two-fisting handguns shot, it goes to Cudi. Woo tones down his style somewhat, with less slow-motion than you’d expect and an absence of doves.
My only issue with Silent Night is that the bad guys are very random, with Woo perhaps trying to make the point that random gang violence is more the culprit than anyone. The one Godluck most wants to kill is a gangster named Playa, played by Harold Torres, but he gets little to no depth. His men are all just footsoldiers for Godluck to blow away.
While not among Woo’s best work, Silent Night is still a more than decent comeback for the action auteur. By embracing a different style, Woo proves that as far as action goes, he still has plenty of fresh ideas. While the movie’s no-dialogue aspect occasionally wears thin, the action is copious and makes this a must-see for Woo’s fans and younger viewers who may not know his stuff.
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