Directed By John Woo

Starring – Joel Kinnaman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Kid Cudi

The Plot – From legendary director John Woo comes this gritty revenge tale of a tormented father (Kinnaman) who witnesses his young son die when caught in a gang’s crossfire on Christmas Eve. While recovering from a wound that costs him his voice, he makes vengeance his life’s mission and embarks on a punishing training regimen in order to avenge his son’s death.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, drug use and some adult language

Silent Night (2023) Official Trailer – Joel Kinnaman, Scott Mescudi – YouTube

POSITIVES

John Woo hasn’t directed a film for the silver screen in twenty years, but gets back on the bike with ease, steering some of the most impactful action set pieces in a year already defined by the genre. Unlike Woo’s previous work, there isn’t a lot of overstylizing to the concepts sequences, until the adrenaline-fueled final showdown, instead choosing to infuse the set pieces with a rampant style of versatility behind the lens that moves and contorts with each twist for advantage in the groundedly human fight choreography, but also this crisply defined layer of sound design in post-production, which affords the audience unfiltered access into every devastating blow. In terms of brutality, this film does not hold back for a second in earning every bit of emphasis towards its coveted R-rating, bathing itself in a barrage of blood and bullets that maximize the potential in stakes of every tension-filled conflict that our protagonist finds himself wholeheartedly jumping into. Speaking of Kinnaman, this is a remarkable performance from him not only full of limitless physicality, but also emotionally grueling for the kind of humanity that he imbeds to the design of the character. Considering Kinnaman is given no dialogue throughout the entirety of the film, nor very much characterization, it forces him to work overtime with the boldness of his facial registries, which coherently illustrate all of the rage and agony of his now dreaded disposition. Kinnaman’s status as an action star has never been questioned, as he served as one of the only valuable pieces to the “Robocop” remake, but here he proves an emotional gravitas that hook his captivating emphasis, with him dominating nearly one hundred percent of the movie’s screen time. Lastly, while the story is thinly devised throughout the entirety of the run time, I did appreciate that the film wastes no time putting the movements of the story into motion, with an opening act that begins in the middle of the movie’s conflict. This sets the pace for the consistency of the storytelling’s pacing, with its foot constantly on the gas, and only stopping for these tranquill flashbacks in backstory, which Woo, with the help of meaningful lighting between respective timelines, draws a place or object together in ways that immediately immerse us into the memories of the parent, with Marco Beltrami’s mournful score painting a desparately desolate articulation of grief in the first of many steps to redemption.

NEGATIVES

Many problems sacrifice the integrity of the engagement, beginning with the dialogue-free gimmick, which stetches logic in ways that feel completely distracting to these scenes involving multiple characters. Considering Kinnaman’s character was shot in the throat, which renders him voiceless, I have no idea why secondary characters still can’t communicate orally with him, or even with each other. If Kinnaman’s character were deaf, it would’ve made a whole lot more sense in the creativity of the concept, where sound designs could’ve even offered an immersive appeal to his captivity, but as it stands this is an obvious gimmick that rarely, if ever, feels earned, taking these simplistic scenes of body movements and fleshing them out with a degree of difficulty that grows all the more tedious, the longer the film persists. Speaking of simplicity, the story is plagued by it, not only in the abundance of cliches that tie this and so many revenge porn movies together, but in the complete lack of characterization from any angle, which made it difficult to see these characters as anything other than the types that the movie portrays them as. For Kinnaman, this is most hurtful, outlining him as ambiguously as a ghost, but for his dangerous adversaries it’s every toxic stereotype about minorities that you can possibly conjure, with the leader of this gang being defined by the single biggest and most ridiculous tattoo, which any idiot could see is a defining mark for lineups. In fact, the only scene that the script wastes on him involves him giving free money to kids, so he’s framed in a way that feels entirely contradictory to his construct, with Woo never bothered to spend anymore time fleshing out the reasoning for his generosity. As for the cliches, because the script doesn’t do anything freshly innovative or challenging to its outline, it feels derivative of every “Punisher”, “Peppermint”, or any Denzel Washington movie after 2006, plagued by this detectable line of predictability that it’s never able to evade for even a single solitary scene. It’s also a film that takes itself entirely too seriously, in the confines of some unforeseen shallow social commentary, that it doesn’t earn with even a shred of long-term commitment. I guess I take this as Woo’s attempt to conjure awareness to the proceedings, as throwaway radio dialogue about rising inflation rates and gang gun violence never lead to any kind of rhetorical conversation on the subject, instead serving as one of the many examples that takes away from the consistently campy approach that Woo’s career and this film should’ve mutually shared. Finally, while the film is set in and around the Christmas season, its style doesn’t exactly reflect this in tangible ways to the presentation, leading to the aforementioned absence in style that Woo typically embraces in his projects. If the visuals of calendars shown during montages didn’t exist, then I would’ve had no clue that this was in fact a holiday film, and considering the inception of the film goes as far as to label it with a Christmas influenced title, it’s all the more confusing why this film and its script didn’t make the most of the uniqueness, instead settling for a presentation and production that feel as bland as its concept.

OVERALL
“Silent Night” is proof that actions are always louder than words, but in the case of Woo’s first big screen film in twenty years, it’s full of miscalculated ones that keep it from standing out against a barrage of revenge porn predecessors. With an illogical gimmick in execution, flat characterization and a complete absence of Christmas themed imagery, Woo’s latest is a lump of lackadasical coal that takes itself too deadly serious, cementing great action, but little else inside of this hollow package.

My Grade: 5/10 or D