Title – Silent Night (2023)
Director – John Woo (Face/Off)
Cast – Joel Kinnaman, Kid Cudi, Catalina Sandino Moreno
Plot – Hellbent on revenge towards those that had a hand in the death of his young boy, father turned vigilante Brian Godlock (Kinnaman) turns his Christmas period into a period of bloodshed and carnage.
“Kill them all”
Review by Eddie on 13/05/2024
An air of quiet excitement surrounded legendary Chinese action director John Woo’s return to Hollywood with his first venture back in the system since his ill-fated Ben Affleck starring Paycheck from 2003 but that 20 year hiatus was one many wished would have continued with the lifeless and pointless exercise that is Silent Night.
A gimmicky mid-budgeted action thriller that sells itself on the fact its a film with no proper dialogue across its 100 minute runtime, one would expect with zero character development or very minor at best character investment that Woo would let his action shine but sadly for all the man that once gave us genre classics such as Hard Boiled, Bullet in the Head and cult favourites such as Face/Off can’t even get that right in a film that feels past its use by date mere minutes in.
In a new age cinematic world that has been gifted modern action affairs like the double bill Raid films, the John Wick and original Jason Bourne trilogies and even The Mission Impossible brand that Woo once helmed, a stale and mostly mind-numbing genre effort like Silent Night feels like the exact type of straight to video release Netflix has made its name for over recent years with its action beats and pointless Xmas time setting unable to bring any goodness to a high-concept that fails to take off.
Front and centre to this generic revenge tale of an aggrieved father on a one man mission to murder his way through all those he perceived to have had a part in his young boys murder is the unfortunate Joel Kinnaman who keeps finding ways of signing himself up to lacklusture products and while every now and then he finds himself in a winner like 2021’s Suicide Squad, Kinnaman’s work outside of the TV realm has quickly established him as one of those names that has become synonymous with average to downright bad.
Joel, it might be time to find yourself a new agent buddy.
Taking forever to even get to the type of bullet filled material you thought you were signing up for, Silent Night cares little that its giving you nothing for a solid 30 – 40 minutes only to then unleash a solid hour of careless and mostly sleep-inducing action full of lots of empty cartridges and nameless goons, ensuring anyone that expected anything slightly close to the action goodness that Woo has produced in the past are going to leave this soulless exercise with nothing more than a lot of regret.
Final Say –
A unique on paper concept that gets quickly washed away by a lack of purpose, poor execution and overall blandness, Silent Night squanders its directors greatest strengths and yuletide setting on an experience that is akin to a lump of coal and empty shotgun shells in a smelly Christmas stocking.
1 bauble flashback out of 5
Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys) 
Yeah after David Harbour in Violent Night, I thought this would be okay. As you say, it’s just a little bland.
Bland plus more. At the very least you’d have expected some memorable action but not even that was to be found here!
E
When I first heard about this film, gimmicky or not with the minimal spoken words, I was highly anticipating seeing it (yes, in the theatre), but upon its release and reading disappointing reviews of the film spending sooooo much time with training montages, I knew I could wait til it came out on home video. But now? I might just wait until someone makes a “Silent Night Explained” youtube video and get the highlights there.
This is one I would very much suggest you bypass. It had potential but as an end product here there’s nothing to get excited about.
E