Time: 104 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Bloody violence
Cast:
Joel Kinnaman as Brian Godlock
Scott Mescudi as Detective Dennis Vassel
Harold Torres as Playa
Catalina Sandino Moreno as Saya Godlock
Director: John Woo

I was looking forward to Silent Night. This would be John Woo’s return to American filmmaking in 2 decades, after 2003’s Paycheck. The trailer made it look exciting, a bloody and stylish action action revenge flick, with Christmas as a backdrop. As it turns out, the movie turned out a little different than I was expecting.

Based on the trailer, you’d think that Silent Night is a John Woo Christmas action movie. However, it’s far darker and more somber than you would expect it to be. The story is downbeat, relatively subdued, and even the anticipated bloodshed isn’t that heroic. It resembles James Wan’s Death Sentence more than anything that Woo has directed before. It is reminiscent of the straightforward revenge thrillers from the 70s and 80s, and while it can be seen as another revenge fantasy (particularly of the white suburban variety), I do think there is some self awareness. I wouldn’t say it’s a deconstruction of the genre, but it does show how much the main character’s desire for revenge is just consuming him. This is especially seen in how his wife is also suffering just as much from the tragedy which kicks off the movie, but the main character opts to just focus on his revenge fantasy. There’s a bit of melodrama as expected with this being John Woo, but I don’t think it works here this time for certain reasons.

This brings to me the central gimmick of the movie: the very minimal dialogue. Early in the movie, the central character is shot in the throat, meaning that he can’t speak anymore. However, the minimal dialogue has seemingly extended to every character in the movie, and this is a very deliberate choice. There’s probably less than 10 lines of dialogue in the movie, and most of them come from dialogue from radio chatter giving obligatory exposition. While admirable for maybe the first 15 minutes, it becomes quickly evident that this might not have been the best choice for the movie. This gimmick of next to no dialogue wears itself thin, and you feel no emotional stakes because of this. I think if it was the over the top straightforward action revenge flick presented in the trailer, perhaps it would’ve worked, especially if it was under 90 minutes. However, for the bleak and 105 minute long revenge thriller that Silent Night is, that just worked against the movie. If they were that committed to this concept, they should’ve just had the protagonist not speaking, and let other characters speak. It would’ve told a much more moving story. Dialogue or no dialogue, the story and writing here is pretty generic.

While much of the acting is hit or miss, it comes down to Joel Kinnaman in the lead role, and he’s great. He has to give a wordless performance and he commits to his character, conveying a lot with his eyes and facial expressions alone.

John Woo’s direction is one of the better parts of the movie. It’s decently made, with some striking imagery. The action isn’t quite on the level of his Hong Kong action movies, nor his other American action movies, but it is still fun to watch. There’s lots of shootouts and it delivers on the violence. However, you do have to wait for the second half and mainly the third act before you get those set pieces. 

Silent Night is far from John Woo’s best and its central gimmick sometimes works against the film. However, it’s an otherwise stylish, entertaining and surprisingly somber action revenge flick, with a great lead performance from Joel Kinnaman and solid action scenes. It’s probably one of the more disappointing movies in 2023 given the potential and John Woo’s involvement, but I still enjoyed it.