'Silent Night' review: John Woo blew it

John Woo is unquestionably a master of action movies, having gifted audiences with the pulse-pounding pleasure of Face/Off, Hard Boiled, and Mission: Impossible II, just to name a few. For decades, this Hong Kong filmmaker has unfurled stunt scenes, car chases, and battle sequences that aren't just jaw-dropping in their imagination and intensity but also so absolutely bonkers that you can't help but laugh with exaltation. 

There's a delicious joy to Woo's best movies because they scoff in the face of physics, grabbing us by the jugular as they race into wilder and wilder face-offs and showdowns. So, I was eager to see his Christmas-set actioner Silent Night, expecting the dialogue-free tale of a man seeking vengeance to have not only gonzo fights but also a cheeky sense of humor. 

It is with a heavy heart that I report that outside of its promising opening sequence, Silent Night takes its preposterous premise deadly seriously. And not even the carnage Woo offers can combat the tedium of this film's cliches. 

Silent Night acts like Die Hard and John Wick never happened — to its detriment. 

Credit: Lionsgate

In a world where Die Hard has not only been held up as one of the best American action movies but also a "Christmas movie," anyone combining fight scenes and Yuletide better go hard or go home. Silent Night, scripted by Robert Archer Lynn, starts off strong with its hero Godlock (Joel Kinnaman, who you might remember from Suicide Squad or that forgotten RoboCop reboot from 2014) racing down an alley, crowded by street people and garbage. He's wearing a silly Rudolph the Reindeer sweater, complete with fluffy red nose, and a single jingle bell that bounces around his neck as he sprints. He's also covered in blood. There's a playful (and figurative) wink as the camera moves from a close-up of his alert eyes to the doe-eyed stare of the knitted Rudolph. Unfortunately, the self-awareness and any chance at humor will run out before the title card hits. 

With zero setup, Woo launches Godlock into an uneven battle against gang members zipping around in flashy cars, guns blazing. Though unarmed, Godlock's quick thinking leads to a man-versus-car showdown that turns the table on the expected — and it's sensational fun. Unfortunately, his victory is short-lived. After all, they are armed to the teeth, and he has a jingle bell.

By the end of this confrontation, Godlock is hanging onto life by a thread and has lost his voice box to a bullet through the throat. He's no longer able to speak. For no apparent reason, those around him rarely speak either. So, there's no essential dialogue, which is the central conceit that should ostensibly make Silent Night stand out from a slew of other revenge movies. But the reveal that Godlock's young son was shot down just before that chase scene is frustratingly predictable. And worse yet, Silent Night makes a torturous slog of what comes next. In a grim gray palate, Godlock stumbles through physical therapy, throws a tantrum because he cannot scream and returns to a home where the Christmas tree has died and his kid's presents sit unopened beneath it. 

From there, he will recede into liquor — illustrated by his scowl and a collection of empty bottles — while his wife (Catalina Sandino Moreno) exists to cry softly and look off mournfully. On top of feeling like the stuff of a bad student film project, all this somber setup is comprised of such common plot points for a revenge movie that Silent Night feels woefully dated. I'd thought John Wick had made such dreck obsolete with its ruthlessly efficient opening and its near-parody stakes of a puppy death as the inciting incident for world-rumbling vengeance, but apparently not.

Silent Night's main gambit doesn't play. 

Credit: Lionsgate

Godlock's physical inability to speak reflects his emotional stagnation, because even in an age of texting he won't express his feelings. Instead, he'll drown them in a bottle, then bury them in a year-long plan to bring down the gang that ruined his life. While Silent Night clearly establishes why its protagonist doesn't talk, it becomes increasingly ridiculous that no one around him does. 

His wife, who also lost a child, is practically miming grief. The detective on the case (Kid Cudi) puts down a business card and otherwise communicates with nods or hard stares. Even the gang, who is ambushed into a hardscrabble war, only communicates via text messages or sneers. There's no one begging for their lives as Godlock aims a gun at their faces. There are no malicious witticisms, bellowed threats, or arrogant one-liners. And the absence is not made up by anything all that compelling. 

Joel Kinnaman can't pull Silent Night's conceit off. 

It's a hard ask for any leading man to carry an action movie with no lines. Kinnaman, while a serviceable actor in a slew of action-packed and dramatic offerings, doesn't have the kind of audience goodwill or powerful screen presence to shoulder all this without a word.

He's dully intense and sad as he mourns and rages. He transforms his body to hard and ready for action over an overlong and brazenly cliched training montage. But he's not going to give the audience the wide-eyed excitement of Nicolas Cage or the mischievous grin of Bruce Willis or even the steely cool of Keanu Reeves. He doesn't have the history or icon status to make this work. 

Perhaps a soundtrack that spoke for Godlock could have bolstered Silent Night's biggest challenge. But aside from the titular song playing over the operation that dislodges the bullet from his larynx, no tunes in the movie are all that memorable. 

Silent Night feels like a lazy '90s movie dusted off but not updated. 

On top of the cliches mentioned above, the villains of this movie are boring archetypes. For starters, the leader of the gang is called Playa (Harold Torres). If that name made you roll your eyes, strap in because Silent Night's idea of gangland destruction includes graffiti that reads "Fuck the Police" and "Coming to da gang." Every member of Playa's crew is thinly defined, constructed chiefly through streetwear, face tattoos, and a snarl. Then there's Playa's sultry girlfriend who exists chiefly to shoot up, shoot at others, and be shot at — all while scantily clad.  

There's no sense of rising up the ranks as Godlock takes on more and more of the crew, because they aren't defined enough for levels to be established. So tension withers. And while Woo's action scenes involve hand-to-hand combat, gunfire, explosions, car chases, and more gunfire, there's nothing as exhilarating as the opening — which involves improvised weapons and a bit of parkour. 

Strapped with tons of guns and a death wish, Godlock isn't particularly distinctive as a vigilante. As to his motive, golden flashbacks to his time with his son are suffocatingly schmaltzy, giving little depth and more of a gesture toward it. Honestly, watching this hero determinedly ignore his suffering wife and turning to YouTube tutorials on knife combat just made me think of the meme about all the things men will do instead of going to therapy.

Silent Night is barely a Christmas movie. 

Set in California, there's no snow and little winter wear — but that's no excuse. Die Hard takes place in Los Angeles, and its clever office party setting gets us in the spirit every year (not to mention the corpse wearing a Santa hat). Silent Night has that sweater in the beginning, but as Godlock's big act of vengeance is timed for the following Christmas Day, you might expect some fun to be had with the setting. Nope. 

There are some superficial flourishes, like Playa wearing a Santa cloak and some decorations on the cop's house. But there's no fun to be had with the dangers of Christmas lights or ornaments, as was seen last year in the Santa slasher Violent Night. Instead, Silent Night feels like a woefully bog-standard revenge movie with a few cheap stabs at Yuletide flare, hinging its identity on a gambit that doesn't pay off. 

In the end, Silent Night is only shocking in how dull it manages to be. By taking the silly premise of dodging dialogue to absurd ends with an absolutely straight face, the film burns out its audience goodwill early on. There's no action past the opening that makes it worth hanging around with Godlock, who himself feels a pale imitation of countless other raging dads (like John Travolta/Nic Cage's in Face/Off). And the determinedly stern tone not only makes the movie achingly one-note but also a frustrating waste of time. If you've seen one revenge thriller, you've basically seen this one. 

Silent Night opens in theaters Dec. 1.