It appears we are fully in the era of experimenting with dialogue-free films. Hulu’s No One Will Save You recently tackled the feat and it added a chilling layer to its fresh talking on an alien home invasion. Now we have action director John Woo, back after a 20-year absence, toying with the hook for his latest film, Silent Night. The movie is about 99 percent dialogue free and Woo makes it all work because he’s a master at generating visceral thrills through his expertly crafted action sequences. Maybe this method of having characters say little will become a gimmick but the film manages to make it all work while adding a surprising dose of palpable tragedy that truly resonates.
Brian Godluck (Joel Kinnaman) is a family man with a wife named Saya (Catalina Sandina Moreno) and a young son, Taylor. The film’s title is a nice play on the fact that the events of the opening take place on Christmas Eve and that the movie, as we will learn, will have virtually no dialogue. On this day his life is tragically torn apart when his son is killed in the crossfire of a gang war and, in the process, he also loses his voice when he is shot in the throat. Brian survives the ordeal but he’s consumed by revenge and he wants all involved to pay.
After Brian gets out of the hospital, he marks his day of retribution as Dec. 24, 2022, to kill every single gang member who was responsible for his son’s death. To show the determination behind his revenge plot, Brian spends May to December training himself and preparing for his mission. This is done all in silence and with no dialogue, something that Kinnaman is able to accomplish with a real sense of ease. The audience feels Brian’s pain and they also see the anger that will fuel his vengeance. The fact that Kinnaman can achieve this with no words, is an impressive feat.
Screenwriter Robert Archer Lynn and Woo are keenly aware that even though Brian can’t talk, everyone else can, so they use pretty interesting techniques to drown out the dialogue so it doesn’t destroy the hook of the film. They also cleverly avoid other situations where other characters would have to actually talk to Brian. Some of them are fairly simple like Brian and Saya using text messages to communicate with each other. This is normal behavior, even for a married couple. In another moment, the camera moves outside a hospital window so we don’t hear the nurses inside Brian’s hospital room. Some viewers might think it’s a cheap way to avoid using words but Woo makes the lack of dialogue feel like a necessary asset. It drives the overall emotion of the film.
Speaking of emotion, for a film marketing itself mostly for its cutthroat action, the movie has tragedy that permeates through almost every frame. This isn’t the first time that Woo has done this if you’ve seen Bullet in the Head or The Killer, but it’s definitely a tradition he hasn’t lost his touch on. It’s satisfying to see Brian exact his revenge but no matter how many people he kills, nothing will bring his son back. There is satisfaction in the kill but the story never loses the fact that Taylor is still gone.
Biran has character growth not only as a killing machine but also as a man who remembers his son. It’s powerful whenever Brian recalls Taylor but not in a depressing way that might turn people off who are merely interested in seeing the action unfold. Brian also still has a deep love for Saya but his obsession with revenge has put a cloud on their relationship. Not even she can stop his desire for payback. Making Brian’s existence even more tragic is that the film occasionally flashes back to happier times in his life which, when viewed looking at his present day, truly shows that his former dream life is pretty much a brutal nightmare at this point. Marco Beltrami’s score adds to the sullenness of the tragedy but also the intensity of the action that’s to come.
Woo’s mastery of action has not slowed down after all of his years in the business. Even though it has been 20 years since his last American film Windtalkers, this is a director who has not lost his touch. Signature Woo is found in a series of car chases and shootouts, all seemingly done on a relatively lower budget than most films of this nature. There is a kinetic poetry to how Woo captures the action and even though we don’t get the white doves that have been associated with the director, we do get his trademark slow-motion shots that still feel as cool as ever.
The big action standoff that came off the best is an extremely brutal hand-to-hand combat sequence between Brian and one of the minions of the tattooed gang leader Playa (Harold Torres). There is more intensity involved in a fistfight, especially one staged by Woo and it crackles with brutal intensity.
The action landscape has certainly changed in the 20 years since Woo was on the American big screen, especially with films like the John Wick franchise setting a new standard, but what the director does with Silent Night is a solid calling card to the past while also staying fresh and relevant enough to work in the present. Also, while there are other members of the cast that populate the film, it’s Kinnaman’s quiet intensity, clad in an “only dad would wear that Christmas sweater”, that gives much of the movie its brutal heartbeat. At the end of the day, Silent Night will likely become an action cult classic that’s perfectly suitable for the holiday season.
Silent Night will debut exclusively in theaters on December 1, 2023, courtesy of Lionsgate.
At the end of the day, Silent Night will likely become an action cult classic that's perfectly suitable for the holiday season.
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Hello! My name is Gaius Bolling: movie, TV, and pop culture junkie! The industry has been in my veins since I was a kid and I have carried that on through adulthood. I attended Los Angeles Film Academy and participated in their screenwriting and editing program. From there, I have learned to hone my skills in the world of entertainment journalism. Some of my favorite genres include horror, action, and drama and I hope to share my love of all of this with you.