Not to be confused with the 2012 slasher film “Silent Night” or the 2020 South London crime movie “Silent Night” or the 2021 black comedy “Silent Night,” John Woo’s “Silent Night” is a dialogue-free vigilante revenge thriller with echoes of “Taken” and “Peppermint” and of course “Death Wish.” For the 77-year-old Woo, who has influenced generations of directors with films such as “The Killer,” “Bullet in the Head” and “Face/Off,” this is his first American film since 2003’s “Paycheck,” and it is hardcore evidence Woo regains his signature style and his flair for over-the-top, sometimes poetically brutal action.
“Silent Night” kicks off with Joel Kinnaman’s Brian Godlock wearing a corny Rudolph “dad sweater” as he desperately races through the streets of Los Angeles as a red balloon drifts away in the skies, uh-oh.
We soon learn Brian’s young son has been killed by stray gunfire during a gangland shootout, and Brian’s reckless pursuit of the shooter ends with him on the ground and the leader of the gang, a menacing borderline caricature named Playa (Harold Torres), shooting Brian in the neck at point-blank range.
Brian somehow survives and recovers, but his vocal cords have been obliterated and he’s unable to speak. This sets up the movie-long gimmick of a dialogue-free film, with characters’ voices muffled and most communication transpiring via text messages or notes. (We also occasionally hear a voice on a radio.) In a world where the cliché of the Talking Villain continues to thrive and too many action films grind to a halt so the characters can explain to each other — and thus the viewer — where we’re at and what needs to happen next, there’s something undeniably refreshing about Woo’s reliance on sound, movement and sometimes flashy camera moves to tell his very simple but effective revenge tale.
The square-jawed, leading-man-handsome Kinnaman does a stellar job of conveying Brian’s feelings of despair and rage as he returns home with his wife, Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno), who stays loyal and loving to Brian while reminding him that she’s hurting too. Brian crawls inside of a bottle and holes up in the garage, and Saya finally gives up and leaves him to his bitterness and his anger. Brian pays a visit to the police station with the intention of meeting with the detective (Scott Mescudi) who is working his case, but after Brian identifies Playa and some of his associates via mugshots tacked on the wall, he beats a hasty retreat and begins plotting his revenge, scrawling the words “KILL THEM ALL” on the date Dec. 24th on the calendar (the one-year anniversary of his son’s death) just in case we’re not clear about his intentions.
Cue one of the longest training montages in action movie history. Brian isn’t a trained killer like John Wick or Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills in the “Taken” movies. He’s just a regular guy who has to learn how to drive like a stuntman, shoot like a marksman and fight like Jason Bourne, so we get an extended sequence in which Brian reinforces his Mustang, takes shooting lessons, buys guns and studies YouTube videos to learn how to punch and kick and block blows and stab and stab and stab and stab. It’s a remarkable and relatively fast transition — but we’re reminded Brian is a novice at this whole vigilante thing when he kidnaps and attempts to torture a gang member for information, and it all goes sideways in spectacularly violent, hand-to-hand combat fashion.
With director Woo, cinematographer Sharone Meir and editor Zach Staenberg providing the slick and stylish visuals, and Marco Beltrami’s music pounding home the action, “Silent Night” careens to its inevitable conclusion — a prolonged confrontation between Brian and Playa, with innumerable henchmen/stuntmen meeting their demise along the way.
Glass breaks. Blood splatters. Cars crash and explode. Sometimes it happens in slow motion. By that time, we’ve come to appreciate that if this story DID have dialogue, it’s debatable if that would be an asset. “KILL THEM ALL” pretty much sums it up.
