Silent Night

John Woo's "Silent Night" has no right to be this good; it's an emotionally devastating, brutal action flick that truly hits you hard and then some. The movie, devoid of dialogue which never gets annoying or irritating is filled with immense emotional heft, and it delivers ridiculously entertaining, ludicrous almost john wick style action. While the storyline is a variant of "Punisher" and "Death Wish," it's crafted with such style and panache that you're utterly captivated throughout. I was pleasantly surprised-Joel Kinnaman is an absolute force in this.

It was like being transported back to the 90s.

Director John Woo got world famous for his fabulous action visuals during the nineties. This picture still looks the part, but that is about the only positive I can find...

The bad: the action only starts after 50 minutes. Besides an action packed opening scene of a few minutes no thrilling action to be seen during the first 50 minutes.

Is the action any good then? Well yes and no. As I said before, the action looks great visually, but the action choreography is a bit lame, because gangsters get shot and stabbed and just keep on figthing as if nothing has even touched them. Pretty lame. Credibility near zero.

More bad: the leading actor hasnt got any charisma. He looks like a dork. And although there is one big, bad crime guy who was supposed to be the ultimate evil, but he wasnt impressing me either.

I had hoped for a thrilling action packed gangster movie, but it was quite a bit of a dread to watch though...

This is not up to John Woo's talent. I found the material entirely like a one-trick pony. All rage, and sadness, verging on insanity, without any real character development, or pathos. There is nothing in the lead character's story that allows the audience to sympathize with him, other than the loss of his son. There are no positive events to draw us into the story. Instead, we are faced with an ever-increasing level of horror, rage, and madness. Woo has been known to give violence an almost ballet type of choreography (Bullet time slow motion) but that is not what we are seeing here. With the rage of the main character, we are faced with depression, rage, and madness which causes an ever-increasing degree of violence that continues to the very end of the film. This film should have ratings of extreme violence attached. While I watched the entire film I was left with a deep feeling of disatisfaction when it was over. It almost feels like the film was only part of a story.

This movie is probably not going to satisfy a lot of people who would rather watch a movie with few million dollars in budget and loads of CGI work. Yes you might have seen a similar movie about revenge and sadness, but everyone griefs differently, so don't listen to haters and moaners.

It is definitely not a movie you'd watch with kids under 15 (plus/minus 2) years old.

For a movie that doesn't rely on heavy and deep conversations, this one gets the point across and delivers more than you would expect. It shows a person's will to make peace with themselves and not give up until they reach their goal.

Watch it with an open mind, and enjoy the movie with not much of distractions of talking.

SILENT NIGHT (2023) ** Joel Kinnaman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Kid Cudi. John Woo's disappointing action revenge flick with Kinnaman seeking vengeance on gangbangers who accidentally killed his son on Christmas has so much potential but is squandered in its hole-laden script by Robert Archer Lynn (i.e. Namely the sadly misused talent of Sandino Moreno as the spouse who basically just passively cries while her husband for months on end is holed up in their basement preparing for war). While Kinnaman's character is literally silenced due to his being shot in the throat renders him mute and his impressive implosive performance can't make up for the pedestrian trope-laden story (i.e. The police not doing their job). A few decent set pieces sadly cannot make up for a half-baked update on DEATH WISH and its ilk.