Silent Night (2023) Review

John Woo, famed Hong Kong action film-maker, had taken a prolonged leave of absence from directing Western productions after the 2002 turnip Windtalkers and the 2003 slightly-better-than-turnip Paycheck. Woo hoo(!) for his fans, we suppose?

Silent Night is (you guessed it) almost completely silent in terms of dialogue. Apart from radio chatter and some grunts here and there, there are no words spoken - albeit some text messages, letters and (forced) confession statements can be seen as a little bit of cheating. The action is meant to do the talking, the plot is barebones. An average guy - Brian Godlock (Joel Kinnaman) - is distraught after his son gets hit by a stray bullet in a gang drive-by shooting. He tries to get vengeance, but gets shot in the throat and is rendered unable to speak. Having realised that revenge is a dish best served cold, our protagonist decides to plan a meticulous and all-encompassing blitzkrieg on the gang - which culminates into one fateful, silent night.

Taking over 30 minutes to set up a clichéd and wafer-thin plot, Silent Night takes quite a while to get running to the thing most people come into the theatres for this one for - its action sequences - but the payoff is worth it. There are a few different things this time around: the action, while being highly stylistic, is very believable, and there are only a few moments where the lead character seems to have on plot armour (like a ridiculously entertaining car chase sequence). Brian's progression is super-believable - from emotional to cold and calculated, from skinny to ripped, from almost botching a simple operation where he has the element of surprise to clearing out an entire gang pretty much all by himself... the entire journey is documented as the man's prowess grows.

With the plot being nothing to speak of, pun intended, everything depends upon the performances. Joel Kinnaman is pretty impressive with his visual acting in all but the most emotional scenes. Scott Mescudi, better known as Kid Cudi, feels like an after-thought added to legitimise the vigilante behaviour of the protagonist. Catalina Sandino Moreno is the silent, grieving wife and mother - literally, as she also stops speaking in solidarity (or that is our guess, at least). The villains seem to be from a generic South American gang in Texas who don't seem to show any personality and are relegated to being bullet fodder except in one instance (which also makes them seem unhinged at the end despite starting out like it showcased the "duality of man").

Watch the damn thing if you are a John Woo fan. Or you like action movies. Old-school, well-choreographed, slick action movies, with blood and guts and no superheroes shooting lasers.
As for the film itself? If such a concept exists, we ended up being, well, just "whelmed" - neither over- nor under-.