Silent Night (2023) Review: John Woo Creates an Action Game with a High Dose of Violence, Without Dialogue
Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Catalina Sandino Moreno
Director: John Woo
Where We Watched: In the Theater
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars)
John Woo returns to the cinema with Silent Night, a revenge movie with Joel Kinnaman as the absolute protagonist. Among the many answers that fortunately can be given to the question “What is Cinema?” There is certainly a film like Hard Boiled and therefore, by extension, John Woo‘s filmography. The Hong Kong author has left an indelible mark on the action genre, creating emulators, imitators, and a whole host of feature films that would have loved to be like him but without ever finding the creative flair. Here, Silent Night seems like the film that a great admirer of John Woo shot, following the master’s mannerisms without managing to reproduce his grandeur and rarely finding the flashes that have always distinguished his style. The fundamental problem is that John Woo himself shot it.
We enthusiastically welcome the return to the cinema of a master like John Woo, a director who over the years has given the public emotions and entertainment and who today returns with one of his films. In cinemas from November 30th – distributed by Plaion Pictures – his latest Silent Night it clear, right from the title, what to expect, even if not entirely. Because there is little to trust with the crazy action craftsman of A Better Tomorrow and The Killer, Face/Off, Broken Arrow, and Mission: Impossible II. Even in this case, the revenge movie dominated by a silenced Joel Kinnaman goes beyond tradition and the canons of the genre to get to the essentials in a courageous and interesting operation, even if not entirely successful, which fans will certainly appreciate.
Silent Night (2023) Review: The Story Plot
There are almost no words to live up to the title. Brian has no longer been able to speak since he was shot in the neck. It happens on Christmas Eve, under the blows of two gangs who are clashing in the neighborhood, unloading their magazines on each other. Brian’s son was also killed during the shooting. Weeks and months pass, but the man falls into a depression tormented by memories and fueled by alcohol. His wife Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno) does the only thing he can do now, leave, while he begins to entertain the idea of taking justice into his own hands at the stroke of the next Christmas Eve. In this fictional sketch of Los Angeles – we are in Las Palomas – the police are bogged down and the detective who was in charge of the case (an inexplicably marginal Scott Mescudi) makes no progress.
So, Brian gets back on track with the sole purpose of defeating the gang of his son’s murderer, Playa (Harold Torres). And on a plot that cannot be more essential, the characteristics of a revenge movie are outlined which are completely canonical in terms of impulses, preparation, and execution. The most interesting consideration to make is how Silent Night appears to be a sort of cinema replicating the recent experience of the John Wick saga. Although the franchise starring Keanu Reeves is indebted to the experience of Hong Kong action cinema, it is John Woo‘s new work that on this occasion seems to refer to what is a new cornerstone of contemporary action.
Silent Night (2023) Review and Analysis
Fresh from the success of The Killer, A Better Tomorrow and Hard Boiled in Asia, in 1993 John Woo appeared on the Western scene with Without Truce, a film starring Jean Claude Van Damme. The latter was the first of many successes followed by Face/Off and Broken Arrow which allowed the Hong Kong filmmaker to reach the pinnacle and establish himself with Mission Impossible II, one of the highest ambitions for an overseas director. Now, after directing several films for the Eastern market, John Woo has returned to Hollywood with a film with interesting premises, free of dialogue. If in the first part, Silent Night struggles a bit to get going due to the slowness due to the absence of dialogue, in its final part Woo demonstrates that he has not lost a bit of his skill in the action scenes where the camera does not move but rather dances together with the protagonist Joel Kinnaman.
John Woo is a director who certainly needs no introduction, his films were precursors of the American action cinema of the 90s. One of the first sequences of this kind was, in fact, in Hard Boiled where he showed what can be achieved with organized stunts and a camera. Even in Silent Night, the director doesn’t fail to include a pretty good sequence shot that follows the protagonist as he climbs a building, amidst gunshots and explosions. Although he is masked by some small cuts visible only to the most accustomed eyes, this part alone would be worth the cost of the ticket. Then, through a clever and fantastic use of flashbacks, the camera moves according to the passage of time and allows us to discover more about the protagonist’s past.
The Swedish actor, with one of the best performances in an action film in recent years, plays a self-made vulnerable assassin. Despite the difficult role due to the absence of dialogue, Kinnaman succeeds in conveying the anger and frustration of a father who saw his son lose his life in his hands. Supporting the protagonist, we have Scott Mescudi (aka Kid Cudi) in the role of investigator Vassel. The American rapper was born in ’84, despite this role not being suitable for him, after X-A Sexy Horror Story and Entergalactic now seems to have started a career in the world of cinema that should not be underestimated. John Woo proves once again that he is a master of cinema. After having tried it with several films, it wouldn’t have been a bad idea, however, to have more substantial support from a screenplay which, in this case, is truly lazy and without narrative leaps.
Silent Night is a film which, leaving aside the action part, has a banal plot, without any narrative implication which simply tells a story that has already been seen a thousand times. A more involved plot, which could still highlight the director’s skill in shooting action scenes, would have been a great added value that would have made the film one of the best action films of recent years. The speech, unfortunately, is current in modern Hollywood. A similar case, for example, was Wes Anderson’s recent Asteroid City; a film in which the director limited himself to showing his skill on the technical and aesthetic side but lacking substance and memorability. With his films, John Woo has shown us stories of policemen and crime, vigilantes and outlaws, in short, intense stories full of twists and turns. Maybe, with this long-awaited return, something more was expected. We can say that, if the simplicity of the plot was enough for John Wick to become a cult of the genre, Silent Night will have a little more difficulty in creating its space.
As the title suggests, Silent Night is a film with pure Christmas characteristics. The silence anticipated is linked both to the physical conditions of the main character and to the famous song symbolizing Christmas all over the world. From this point of view, Woo uses some symbolisms coming from this festival, both aesthetic and musical, diverting them into a plot that brutalizes the most festive dynamics, and then molds the most recognizable features into something that inevitably contrasts with the images on the big screen. Starting precisely from this contrast, everything continually moves, meets, and distances itself. Family, pain, loss, the suffering of a father, excruciating depression, the desire to escape and the desire to fight, and the dirtiest disgust of a society that looks the other way part. From all this, revenge becomes a fundamental narrative tool in understanding both the intentions of the director and the protagonist, serving a series of turning points that make violence the only possible voice but… will it be enough to fully convince?
In particular, there is an attempt at reconciliation between the emphasis of Woo’s charged and expanded poetics and the formal rigor of the films starring Baba Yaga. The choice to silence the protagonist – as John was silent – is clear evidence in itself. Even if then the visions, the flashbacks, the bathing in a light from the past are placed in search of a perhaps crude emotional counterpoint, interior intervals in a work which in reality has then moved entirely towards the exterior. At the center, to reiterate is the body which prepares, learns, and assimilates. A body that practices a dance where the emotional caliber lies in Brian’s initial hesitations, who mistakes and makes mistakes at the first useful opportunity. But then Silent Night comes close to the one put into a performance sealed by John Wick 4, more video art than an action movie, recalling the progression of bodies against bodies and of bodies within an almost theatrical or museum-like space.
Woo’s work, taken as a whole, does something else and certainly does not reach that stylistic elaboration summarized over the years by the saga created by Derek Kolstad. At the same time, he does not betray the expectations of the mission to be carried out, perhaps not by exalting it, but by putting the right charisma into it. And on a plot that cannot be more essential, the characteristics of a revenge movie are outlined which are completely canonical in terms of impulses, preparation, and execution. The most interesting consideration to make is how Silent Night appears to be a sort of cinema replicating the recent experience of the John Wick saga. Although the franchise starring Keanu Reeves is indebted to the experience of Hong Kong action cinema, it is John Woo‘s new work that on this occasion seems to refer to what is a new cornerstone of contemporary action.
Silent Night (2023) Review: The Last Words
John Woo returns with a dialogue-free revenge movie, with Joel Kinnaman in great form. Despite his age, he shows that he hasn’t lost touch with the camera and gives us an excellent action film that leaves a little to be desired, however, in terms of the screenplay. With Silent Night John Woo once again demonstrates the power of his action cinema, even to the detriment of everything else. Working on a story with both classic and interesting characteristics, this director amazes by using a series of extremely familiar models to outline a path of violence that is certainly dynamic and studied, which strips the narrative dimension of any new idea.
Silent Night (2023) Review: John Woo Creates an Action Game with a High Dose of Violence, Without Dialogue - Filmyhype
Director: John Woo
Date Created: 2023-12-01 16:12
3
Pros
- The direction and choreography are crazy.
- Violence as the only voice, even social and personal.
Cons
- The plot is too predictable and thin.
- The rhythm condensed in the interpretation of a protagonist who is not entirely convincing.
