Director: John Woo
Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Scott Mescudi, Harold Torres, Catalina Sandino Moreno
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 104 mins

Silent Night is an action thriller by John Woo, his first English language film since 2003’s negatively received Paycheck. Brian Godluck (Joel Kinnaman) is an electrician, who lives with his wife, Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and young son Taylor Michael. On Christmas Eve 2021, while Brian is playing in the garden with his son, Taylor Michael is killed when he is caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting by a local cartel. Brian pursues the gang but is shot in the neck, with his vocal cords severely damaged. He luckily survives and once he’s out of hospital, decides to enact his revenge by  training himself up physically and setting a target date of the following Christmas Eve for all the gang members to be dead. It’s a pretty straightforward plot but key to the film standing out is the fact there is next-to-no-dialogue. 

For the most part, Silent Night is a return to form for Woo with a trio of giddy action sequences. Two car chases are particularly vividly shot, especially the opening one where we see both the chase itself overhead and from the perspective of a character running towards the cars from an alley. There’s also a terrific stairwell sequence that’s meant to feel as if it’s one take. 

The story is pretty simplistic and Woo isn’t known for his subtlety – the film feels overly schmaltzy at times and cutting this out would have resulted in an even leaner film. The lack of dialogue mostly works well, although there are scenarios the characters fin themselves in, such as a meeting at a police station, where two people clearly need to communicate with words. I think the film would have packed more of a punch with a limited script rather than with virtually no spoken words. 

As for the performances, Joel Kinnaman can be quite a wooden actor but strip him of dialogue and he does an excellent job. Catalina Sandino Moreno, who was famously Oscar-nominated for her leading role in Maria Full of Grace stands out as Brian’s wife, Saya, and beautifully conveys her empathy to her husband and her heartbreak at the loss of her son. 

Given the lack of dialogue, there’s greater pressure for Marco Beltrami’s score to deliver and boy, does it. Beltrami crafts several memorable themes and conveys the grief of the traumatic incident and the energy of the kinetic action sequences brilliantly. 

Although overly sentimental in its tone, Silent Night is mostly a blast throughout. Woo reminds us he can deliver balls-to-the-wall action and while the action doesn’t top John Wick: Chapter 4 earlier this year, it’s a significant step above the average action thriller. I’ve got a feeling this could be an enduring Christmas film as time passes and I’m excited to see what Woo does next. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Excellent)