David Farnor | On 31, Dec 2023

Director: John Woo
Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Kid Cudi, Harold Torres, Catalina Sandino Moreno
Certificate: 18

John Woo is, without a doubt, one of the greatest action directors of all time. The fact that it’s been a long time since his last hit success doesn’t take away from the influence he’s had on every other action helmer working today. Now, 20 years after his first major slip – 2003’s Paycheck, starring Ben Affleck – he’s back on the English-language beat for Christmas thriller Silent Night.

We pick things up just as a young boy is killed in a drive-by, with his dad, Brian (Joel Kinnaman), catching a bullet in the neck. The title’s pulling double-shifts here, as it not only refers to the timing of the inciting incident, but also to Brian’s health – his injury leaves him unable to talk. But that doesn’t dampen his determination to get revenge on the gang responsible for his son’s death.

A wounded father – on multiple levels – and a thirst for vengeance? It’s familiar territory for John Woo, who loves tormented masculinity almost as much as he loves slow-motion shootouts. There’s plenty of both on offer, with Kinnaman perfectly cast as the grieving dad. Kinnaman has a knack for letting a melancholic pain simmer just below the surface and that sour brand of charisma is channelled effectively into the part of a man spiralling through grief into anger with blinkers on. The lack of speech almost works as an exploration of the toxic way men can fail to vocalise their feelings, but that’s more to do with Kinnaman’s performance than the script, which keeps things very surface level. Catalina Sandino Moreno is severely underserved as Brian’s dialogue-less wife, Saya, although she also adds emotional heft to a part that’s thin on the page.

Woo, however, is clearly enjoying the chance to push himself as a storyteller, using only visuals to show things rather than tell us – a calendar marked “KILL THEM ALL” on Christmas Eve the following year is darkly on-the-nose touch, but efficiently sets the pace and mood for the following 90 minutes. Rather than rushing in guns blazing, we realistically follow Brian’s painstaking efforts to train himself and prepare for his mission, which puts us in lockstep with a man who’s sympathetically hurting, even if his violent methods exist in a cartoonish world away from reality. The action, when it comes, is slickly shot with a stomach-churning sense of immediacy, although it’s missing the epic balletic set pieces and stunts that Woo fans would expect (but not the earnest melodrama). A return to form? Not quite, but there’s enough here to make for an enjoyable addition to the canon of anti-Christmas films.

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