John Woo will always have my heart thanks to Face/Off. Two truly unhinged performances seeing who can be the most insane is pure glee, just like shootouts in dove filled churches. No doves in this one though. Silent Night sees Woo eschew his over the top dialogue in favor of a purely visual tale, one that never quite reaches the emotional gut punch the director thinks he’s crafting. Merry Christmas you f*ckin filthy animals!
Silent Night opens on Brian Godlock (Joel Kinnaman), frantically running through a crime ridden California street on Christmas Eve, covered in a bloody Rudolph Christmas sweater. For reasons that become clear, Brian picks a fight with Playa (Harold Torres) and a giant gang crime syndicate, only to be shot in the throat (get it, SILENT night). Brian’s wife Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno) tries to get him to love again, but he’s drenched in sorrow and alcohol, frustrated that Detective Dennis Vassel (Scott Mescudi, Kid Cudi) hasn’t done enough to stop gang violence. Brian’s frustration turns to laser clear anger and focus, as he decides he’s going to get his revenge on the gang this upcoming Christmas.
With no dialogue really, Silent Night really tests John Woo’s ability to tell a story through images only. He’s trying to keep it simple here, going through basic emotions like happy, sad, angry, etc. That puts a lot of weight on Joel Kinnaman’s acting ability to really sell all of this. Kinnaman is 2/3 good: he’s made a career at playing dour and angry, which is thankfully the main emotion Woo is going for. But straight up sincere happiness and love? That’s not one of Kinnaman’s strengths, which is where the movie falters. Maybe worse at conveying love in movies is John Woo, who in the past has used weird character choices like hand to face gestures to get the emotion across. Every choice Woo makes for gestures of love is either really bad or unintentionally hilarious, like a gravesite present opening or the repeated use of a wind up toy, which deflates the movie making it harder to get sucked back in again while Silent Night is trying to be loving.
And that’s too bad, because the dour angry stuff really works when it’s cooking. Gone are the glitzy action sequences here: Woo really goes visceral with the action in Silent Night, with lots of blood and seemingly real violence. Deaf Wish, if you will (I’m so sorry for that one). Woo and Kinnaman go to great lengths to show us Brian is playing on video game level beginner, and he has to train his way up to legendary. As such, he makes a bunch of mistakes since he’s never really been in a fight before. And those mistakes lead to real painful injuries, like bullets to arms or severely maimed body parts. The car chases look like they hurt everyone, with Brian and the gang members constantly hitting each other and getting into vicious car wrecks. All leading to Woo’s masterpiece finale of mayhem: Brian’s video game like rise up the boss ladder in a building, juxtaposed with the true insanity Playa is up to at the top of the gang’s lair. That’s Woo at his action visionary best, giving us something exciting with something visually ludicrous. The very ending is the one good scene of longing and love because of how crazy it is, almost making up for Silent Night’s icky mess the first hour or so.
Even Bad Santa isn’t as mean as Silent Night is. Christmas feels shoehorned in so John Woo and Joel Kinnaman can do a silent revenge tale that really makes everyone uncomfortable during a time of empathy and love. So if you feel like your spoiled brat teenagers need a wake up lesson to the dark side of life, take them to see this one, where you can torture them into being better kids as John Woo intended.