Silent Night
- -A tormented father witnesses his young son die when caught in a gang's crossfire on Christmas Eve. While recovering from a wound that costs him his voice, he makes vengeance his life's mission and embarks on a punishing training regimen in order to avenge his son's death.
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Action speaks louder than words. While John Woo’s comeback is fantastic, it tries to capitalize on its “No Dialogue” gimmick.
What’s Good:
John Woo’s return to Western cinema is a wonderful thing. Despite all the gimmicks, his experience filming action scenes is clearly evident.
What’s Bad:
The film overly depends on an odd narrative device, which detracts from its enjoyment and renders the whole experience peculiar and dull.
Summary:
Robert Archer Lynn wrote the screenplay, and John Woo directed the movie Silent Night. The movie is about a father who loses his son and decides that his sole purpose in life is to exact revenge on those who took his son’s life. The movie marks John Woo’s comeback to Hollywood following his 2003 departure from the Western cinema business with the release of Paycheck.
Plot:
In the made-up hamlet of Las Palomas, Texas, electrician Brian Godlock has a contented existence alongside his infant son Taylor Michael and wife Saya. Brian and Taylor are riding a brand-new bicycle on their front lawn on Christmas Eve in 2021. Taylor is killed when they are caught in the crossfire of a drive-by gunshot in the midst of a gang conflict. When Brian tries to apprehend and murder the criminals right away, Playa, one of the leaders of the group, shoots him in the neck and leaves him dead. Brian makes it through, but his vocal cords are badly injured. Saya tries to provide emotional support to Brian as he recuperates physically, but Brian turns aloof and icy, intent only on getting revenge on Taylor. Brian and Saya mourn Taylor’s passing.
Saya leaves Brian after becoming overtaken by grief, with the intention of killing every gang member connected to Taylor’s death on Christmas Eve of 2022. Over the following year, Brian takes up bodybuilding, is trained in self-defense, and becomes conversant with lethal weapons. Brian seems to have made an effort to see Detective Dennis Vassel at one time, after the latter volunteered to assist with his son’s case. Instead, Brian takes advantage of the chance to learn more about Playa’s group and starts spying on them in order to compile evidence that will help convict them. Saya tries to SMS Brian, telling him that she and his parents are concerned about him, but he doesn’t respond. In an attempt to obtain written information about the group’s activities, Brian assaults and kidnaps a member of Playa’s gang while torturing and threatening him.
For a brief moment, the goon escapes, but Brian fights him down. Brian brings a flash drive filled with the proof he has gathered and the thug’s written additions to his information to Vassel’s residence along with the bound thug and a Christmas card stating his intention to kill Playa and his gang. In addition, he threatens Playa by sending him two of the thug’s mutilated fingers. Over the course of Christmas Eve 2022, Brian murders every member of Playa’s gang one by one, frequently foiling their misdeeds in the process.
The gang leader texts his men to meet him at his location after robbing a thug of his mobile phone, using it to film a video of the man’s death, and sending it to Playa. Brian seizes the chance to catch and murder everyone of them there.
As Brian battles his way to Playa, he gets into a fierce gunfire and fistfight, and Detective Vassel confronts him. After exchanging gunfire at first, they both quietly set them aside and decide to cooperate to bring Playa to a close. After Playa’s drug-addicted girlfriend gets the better of him and shoots both of them, Brian sneaks up on her and holds a gun to her throat. She sets down her rifle and pretends to give up. Brian is about to kill her when Playa’s girlfriend shows off a secret sidearm and throws it at him. After killing her, Brian approaches Playa. Playa gains the upper hand in their shootout and is ready to shoot Brian in the neck once more when Detective Vassel shoots Playa, allowing Brian to kill him.
Bleeding out and dying, Brian and Detective Vassel collapse to the ground and stare up at the Christmas lights and ceiling. In a different future in which he and Taylor are still alive, Brian sees reflections of his recollections of his time spent with Taylor. Saya finds a letter that Brian wrote to her in which he expresses regret for his increasing distance from her and expresses gratitude for her love. Brian goes on to say that he will die trying even though he knows no one can make Taylor’s death right. Saya delivers the letter to Taylor’s grave, to which Brian had earlier carried his unopened Christmas gift—a model train set, which he had constructed and arranged around the grave.
Star Performance:
The “no dialogue” ploy is pushed to the limit in Silent Night’s script, so strong performances and images are required to convey the plot in an understandable and seamless manner. This is a difficult task, and the film tragically falls short of it. Square Enix released an odd action game called The Quiet Man a few years ago. Because the main character in that game was deaf, none of the speech was audible. In many ways, Silent Night seems like that. The absence of conversation is not made up for by the screenplay or the direction, which hurts the performances and the film as a whole.
Joel Kinnaman has been working hard in Hollywood for some time now, but he hasn’t been able to land a part that would truly utilize his abilities. Although Kinnaman has shown that he is an excellent performer in AMC’s The Killing, most of his film appearances have been underwhelming. Even his little cameo in the Suicide Squad movie series was cut short after James Gunn gave a fantastic performance in the previous picture. Though Kinnaman gives it his all in this scene, his portrayal and the rest of the cast come across as absurd. The “no dialogue” gimmick is never convincingly justified in the film, and the performers are only able to accomplish so much.