Silent Night (2023)

It’s all garish, nightmarish spectacle — beautiful, terrifying, and poisonous.

Limited by his budget, Woo makes the most of what he has, but the whole thing feels like he’s cautiously dipping his toe back in the Hollywood pool.

Woo is a virtuoso. This movie is music.

For the 77-year-old Woo, who has influenced generations of directors with films such as “The Killer,” “Bullet in the Head” and “Face/Off,” this is his first American film since 2003’s “Paycheck,” and it is hardcore evidence Woo regains his signature style and his flair for over-the-top, sometimes poetically brutal action.

This is suspenseful and cathartic, and even the schmaltzy stuff is so distinctly John Woo that it’s welcome.

This sort of small-scale revenge piece is a pretty common occurrence in the direct-to-VOD market, but what elevates Silent Night is Woo’s skill with action, in concert with the lack of dialogue.

When Silent Night does finally kick into high gear, the action is as artful as anything that Woo has whipped up throughout his storied career.

Silly as it might be, Silent Night gives audiences reason to get excited about the Hong Kong innovator once again, ranking as one of the few bloody Christmas counterprogrammers since “Die Hard” that feels worthy of repeat viewing down the road.

The veteran action director fully delivers the goods with Silent Night.

Silent Night winks at us as often as it tries for genuine drama, and whichever tone you choose to accept will likely determine whether you have as much fun with it as I did.

The match cut, where the mother's tears over her child's death transform into falling bullet casings – 10/10.Otherwise, Woo goes for a 'realistic' approach here; "Silent Night" feels very intimate. Occasional Woo moments and the odd pigeon are still present, though. All in all, a solid revenge action-drama with a believable protagonist and pleasantly absurd **** since the "John Wick" comparison is often made: at least the dramatic stakes are right in "Silent Night," since it's a child, not a yappy dog, that has to pay the price. And Joel Kinnaman is a better actor than Keanu Reeves.

Não há como negar que John Woo fez um trabalho estiloso, e lembra os melhores momentos de John Wick mas com baixo orçamento. Mas também lembra os piores: ao vingar a morte de um ente querido, o protagonista é praticmaente incansável e imortal. Já no primeiro ato é possível desconfiar dessa facilidade do roteiro, então, se você sobreviver ao argumento, o resto é preparar para ver cenasbem divertidas, sem muita profundidade ou verossimilhança. E ficou excelente, tecnicamente, à proposta.

It is insufferably slow, the plot is generic, and there is little dialogue. It claims to be an "action" film, but everything is saved for the movie's final 30-35 minutes. Everything before that is filler nonsense to pad out a story so shallow that you could have told it in 30 minutes or less, let alone an hour of the 90-minute runtime. This is not worth wasting your time on.

This was basically a revenge movie - an action movie where main plotline is about someone getting revenge. So the story was only emphasized for the purpose of why main character is getting revenge and the rest mainly was about the action itself. I enjoyed it though, even it was quite basic, but if you want lots of action then it is decent.

Some mindless action well done. Good story or theme. Entertaining and well deserved adrenaline rush.

The single most boring, nothing movie I have ever seen. An action film where nothing happens 90% of the time. A thriller that's far from thrilling. And a script about as shallow as a kiddie pool. I have never so thoroughly felt like a film's gimmick has held it back as hard as Silent Night- it's commitment to zero dialogue hurts it more than it helps. Except endless scenes consisting of awkward silence, insistent eye contact, and manly grunting to take up nearly all your time. The film obviously thinks its much deeper and smarter than it really is; the first HOUR of the movie is literally an extended training montage while the character prepares to take revenge, and the revenge itself is always left feeling underdone. Whenever the movie dares to bless us with SOMETHING happening, it always has to end just as quickly as it began. That's not to say the action itself is awful; while there is far too much cgi blood for my tastes, there is competency on display on account of the fact John Woo is heading this production. Hell, it can be even better seen through some truly stellar camerawork at different points. But that still doesn't make up for the sheer stubborn refusal to do anything interesting with its characters and story.

this is THE GREATEST MOVIE I've ever seen. I hope that we will see JOEL KINNAMAN and his GREATNESS soon in a lot of movies.

Superb action sequences and a unique no dialogue screenplay come together into a gripping if predictable 104 minutes of viloence filled revenge. Perhaps im slightly biased being a huge action movie genre fan (Also love the works of both Kinnaman and Woo) but I loved the movie.

I'm watching the movie in fast-forward and thinking - why doesn't the main character say anything? Maybe the playwrights ran out of words? And then I found out that at the beginning of the movie he was shot in the throat.... I would like to say to the authors of the movie - guys, the movie may turn out to be boring and uninteresting, even if your characters are running around in circles and shooting at each other. obviously, you just don't understand what drama is... which is a pity!

Certes, ce n'est pas le 'John Woo' des années terribles qui vous flinguait toute une meute de salopards à travers deux bidons d'essence, tout au ralenti, alors que Chow faisait son show dans un hangar et que... Non, ce serait injuste de comparer ce qui ne peut être comparé ; comment comparer n'importe quel film d'action avec le parangon des films d'action, le sacro-saint "A Toute Epreuve" (Hard-Boiled) ?!... même Monsieur Woo n'a jamais pu réitérer l'exploit, y compris avec les moyens (faramineux de tout Hollywood...). Pourtant, la séquence de la fin de ce 'Silent Night', fort bien faite au demeurant, fait penser au fameux Hangar d'A Toute Epreuve qui se situait, faut-il le rappeler, encore vers le début du film... après la mythique séquence d'ouverture, au salon de thé !! et tout cela n'était qu'un... avant-goût bien sûr de la folie à venir !! (là, deux points d'exclamation sont de mise, à chaque fois). Donc, côté réalisation, ce bon vieux John a retrouvé certainement son talent et son inspiration, aidé il est vrai par des transitions numériques (ça aide vachement à fluidifier un plan-séquence...) et le sang en images de synthèse (hélas, tous les films modernes sont comme ça, désormais). Cela peut manquer encore de ralentis mais l'essentiel y est, à savoir les tours de magie de Monsieur Woo, le maître des ballets d'ultra violence ! La séquence de la poursuite du début est également très bien faite, là aussi, on retrouve la maestria du cadre, du montage, des ralentis et des arrêts sur image ! mais... entre les deux, il ne se passe pas grand-chose ! à part des pleurnicheries usées d'un drame à la petite semaine... J'ai même dû un peu accélérer un ou deux passages parce que franchement, tu commences à nous gaver avec ton nabot ! Du coup, malgré une réalisation de haute volée, le scénar s'avère beaucoup trop faiblard pour soutenir le film correctement... et le bilan est hélas bien moyen ! malgré des fusillades brillantes. Hélas, Maître Woo, ce ne sera pas encore pour cette fois (le grand retour). Je vais donc remater pour la dixième fois (environ) "A Toute Epreuve", bordel de merde !!

There’s just too much wrong with this film and not enough time in a day to list it’s many shortcomings!

The action is fine but it is nothing special. It has the same type of action we have seen from a lot of post-John Wick movies, but not as good as John Wick itself. It lacks the charm that we would normally see from John Woo movies. Where are the doves and cool slow-mo? After the action-packed opening scene, it then takes 50 minutes for the action to start occurring again. The set-up is too long! It just keeps hammering the motive of our character over our heads repeatedly.I give it praise for trying something new with the no-dialogue gimmick. However, it just isn't done properly and actually comes at the detriment of the movie. Characters will just stare at each other and not say anything, leading to some really weird, awkward scenes.I wanted Hard Boiled but got Boring Night instead.

First movie of John Woo in Hollywood since Paycheck in 2003 (that was an average movie). This movie is almost all based on the expression of the protagonist and secondary characters, even being previsible and a bit melodramatic (but the melodrama is dispersed thorough the movie), without any line whatsoever is something to be praised and offstream.A father suffers the sudden loss of his son in a gangs shootout in a fictional city on Texas, and barely surviving trying to catch the killers - no explanation why he have those skills in the start of the story and in the end being all movie a preparation for revenge is a big no-no on the script **** is enjoyable especially if you like revenge is better served cold movies. The tension is present and even being previsible the movie delivers the satisfaction of revenge in the end, building up tension till the end (I liked the final scene btw - it was something that was bothering me, and that little bit was explained [ I mean his reactions to the mother that suffered such a hard loss too ] ).Being a John Woo movie you expect very electrifying action scenes and you get those on sequences on the start, middle and especially end as it should be. Really nice and bloody btw - and for the acting of Joel Kinnaman as the only protagonist I decided to gave the movie one star more than it would be without him. So a 7.0 out 1f 10.0 / B for this one. If you crave action and revenge for Christmas this is it (speaking of Xmas, it only serves as a more dramatic starting point for the story - it could have been any time of the year, but hey we need something for the season every year right?).

Hatte eigentlich geringe Erwartungen an den Film, wollte eigentlich nur etwas stumpfes Geballer sehen, einfach um die Woche abklingen zu lassen. 2/3 ging es um das Familiendrama, in den letzten 30-45min kam dann mal Aktion auf. So wie es in der Vorschauen gezeigt wurde. Eigentlich reicht es, wenn man die Vorschau sieht, dort ist die gesamte Aktion des Filmes schon enthalten. PS: Müsst ihr wissen!

Movies like this were built for double features. Nonessential, knuckleheaded old-school grindhouse revenge melodrama. To cinemas: if you want folks to come out for non-tentpoles, play double features- (or do “bank night”, or give out free dishes, or something..)-

This movie had a pretty good concept. You have to like John Woo films to like this movie. It just didn't give me enough emotion to really care

“Action speaks louder than words”. The 77-year-old John Woo returned to Hollywood and to directing six years after his last film (“Manhunt”), creating an adrenaline-filled revenge movie with his typical style, always able to blend the lyricism of emotion and melodrama with extreme violence and the involvement of spectacular action sequences, in turn characterized by rhythm, tight editing, slow motion and special visual effects. Thanks to the effective, but not very inspired staging, John Woo tries to reinvent himself in a "low" budget work. His talent is undisputed, what is perhaps lacking is the ability to revitalize the genre in question. The main characteristic of this film is that it is almost dialogue-free, and dry in every aspect. The screenplay deals with themes such as broken childhoods, the difficult process of mourning, pain and revenge; while the staging is totally focused on the power of sight, sound, and music. The melodrama (the silence of a man in his voice and soul), and the adrenaline-pumping action sequences, however, become interesting only at times. Despite some notable ideas and a certain quality in the general production, the film does not have a serious impact, and furthermore it appears too generic, superficial, lacking. It has its own dignity, but it is undoubtedly far from the memorable masterpieces of John Woo that revolutionized the action genre in the past. Rating (in tenths): 5 / 6

John Woo is known for his high-octane action flicks, so he decided to challenge himself (and us) by producing a movie with no dialogue. There IS sound (radios, police radios, etc) but no spoken words. Joel Kinnaman plays the father of a young boy who was killed by a stray bullet during a street fight on Christmas Eve. After mourning, recovery and getting pumped up, he goes after the gangs responsible a year later. As expected, there is an extended car chase and lots of gun fights, but most of it lacks much originality or wow factor (or should that be "woo" factor?). Woo tries to create some emotion with sweet moments of reflection, but it's syrpy and ineffective. Kinnaman alternates between weakly desperate and sternly determined, but seldom reveals much depth. Overall, this was an interesting experiment, but Woo's lack of anything new or different renders this film a noisy, but quiet dud.

This was awful, the no speaking gimmick was just that, a complete gimmick. This should of been a short story, there is not nearly enough here to support a feature length film. By the 20th cutaway to a flashback of his dead son I was considering walking out. Also, his son dies in a reckless and horrible drive by shooting incident, so his follow up to that is to get engaged in multiple shootouts on the streets?John Woo still brought some good visual flare and some decent action but on the whole this was a total miss.