Silent Night

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.

Watching John Woo's "Silent Night" and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm kind of bored.

Also, the lack of dialogue from ANYONE is just weird. Sure, he can't talk due to being shot (it's in the trailer, hardly a spoiler) but the others haven't been shot. Having no one else speak just takes away the impact of the MC losing his own voice.

I'm also struggling with the fact this guy has zero training but thinks he is going to take on the whole criminal underworld - training himself with YouTube videos in his basement.

I guess, all I'm saying is, if you want a decent "You shot my kid, I must kill you all" revenge film - check out Kevin Bacon's "Death Sentence".

I hate to say, I'm overall disappointed. I really wanted to enjoy this but it fell flat for me. I figured John Woo going back to straight up action will be a treat. Instead of using the idea of a dialogueless action flick as an interesting device he creates a very drab story that is less than appealing. He makes little effort in trying interesting ways to propel the story within the confines he set up. It's like he never watched a silent movie and saw how you can tell a compelling story with minimal dialogue. He just leans on lame cliches. Also there's too many logical errors, even for an action movie. And Joel Kinnaman, who I normally like, makes a less than appealing protagonist. Even without speaking his character seems annoying. An unfortunate misfire from something that had a lot of potential.

I'm not sure if the reviewers watched the same movie as me. I found this film packed with cool stunts and action sequences. I got both John Wick and The Raid vibes while watching it. Some scenes even reminded me of something out of GTA V.

Even though there wasn't much plot in the movie and no dialogues whatsoever, I think the film is carried forward by Joel Kinnaman's excellent acting. Not many big action stars could pull off the same.

All in all, I found it an entertaining and excellent action film. Just switch of your brain and enjoy it. I'm probably going to watch it again. I'll rate it 8/10.

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.