Joel Kinnaman has been a growing action star in my books for the past few years, especially with his performances in Altered Carbon and the DCEU’s Suicide Squad films. He was also great in Hanna, and most recently starred opposite Nicolas Cage in Sympathy for the Devil. And now he has brought a new style of acting to his repertoire with Silent Night.
Bringing in more style to this production, John Woo directed this film—he has not directed an American film since 2003’s Paycheck. He has been a staple in the Chinese and American film industry for decades. He directed some of my favourite films like Mission Impossible II, Face/Off and Red Cliff. He even directed the video game Stranglehold, which starred Chow Yun Fat in his iconic role from Hard Boiled.
Silent Night has been hyped by Woo for the fact that the film has very little dialogue. Kinnaman’s Brian Godlock will have no voice to speak, which was explained by the original plot when family man Brian lost his son Taylor during a drive-by shooting by rival gangs near his home during the holidays.
The story actually jumped straight into the action with Brian chasing down the gang members who shot his son. There was quite a lot of weird zooming in and out during the opening credits and title reveal. Still, the film had a solid action opening. But the rest of the first act became a slog to get through. The film takes a super dark tone and shows a lot of how Brian and his wife, Saya have dealt with the loss of their son in different ways. He could not let go of the loss, which led to alcoholism and recovery from his injuries, all while she tried to move on with her life while trying to care for him.
At this point in the film, the decision to have no dialogue already felt a bit odd, as the characters who could talk simply chose not to. I understand the creative choice for some scenes, but there were parts where I just wanted them to speak! I was also conflicted on whether I should dislike Brian’s character. He was quite insensitive to his wife, blatantly reading in front of her face. I could understand how losing a child in that traumatic way could mentally break a parent. But this was also meant to be an action film. Please give us some excitement! The pacing really dragged during the slower sections rather than building up the high-octane thrills.
If you are a Woo film buff expect some of his iconic shots. But it also contained a lot of experimental shots too, sort of like how there were a million drone shots in Michael Bay’s Ambulance for some reason. There were some interesting millennial zoom-ins on faces to emphasize the emotional beats. However, I felt like these focused shots took away too much screen time from the action as well. Sure, it can be cinematic but for why was it used this way?
If I had to compare this on a scale of Die Hard to Violent Night as a Christmas action film, this probably had less than Disney’s Frozen. And that is a family movie! Yeah, it had some gruesome moments and gore, but I felt like we saw Brian reminiscing about his deceased son a little too much for an action movie.
“Silent Night felt like it was trying to be a modern-day silent film, but the execution was lacklustre.”
I think Silent Night struggled to distinguish itself because John Wick had already executed the revenge premise so well. John Wick efficiently conveyed the emotional impact of the wife’s death and the dog’s murder before quickly moving into thrilling revenge action. In contrast, Silent Night wanted to linger on the grieving process and coping with loss. While a valid creative choice, it resulted in a slower pace that I personally found less compelling than John Wick’s approach.
Every moment felt like it was dragging as I anxiously waited for the next action scene. The film seemed torn between being a dramatic character study about grief and an action thriller about revenge. It didn’t fully commit to either genre. I wish it had leaned more heavily into exciting action, which would have better balanced the slower dramatic sections.
The musical score and song choices did not stand out to me. Marco Beltrami is a great composer, most recently doing scores for The Nun II and Renfield. Although the film had little to no dialogue, the score had a mosh-posh of sadness and hope. But again, I was not sure if they forgot to make some more upbeat choices, like in moments when Brian is getting his revenge on the gangs.
The final verdict was that Silent Night felt like it was trying to be a modern-day silent film, but the execution was lacklustre. I thought having little to no dialogue was a misstep in this specific case. It really felt like other characters should have been able to speak freely around Brian to make the film a bit more interesting. It really felt like they were holding back Scott Mescudi and Catalina Sandino Moreno’s roles as the detective and as Saya. The villain was able to show off his unhinged self fairly well without dialogue but could not work for the protagonist.
I understood what the film wanted to do on paper, but maybe it could have leaned into the more psychotic side of things like in Mad Max Fury Road. Tom Hardy did not have to really speak at all in that. For a 104-minute film, I savoured every second of action I could get in its final acts. Yet, even those had some questionable moments—making this a movie that will silently pass me by this year.
