The holiday genre has gotten larger in the past couple of years with additions of action and horror films, making the season not as merry and bright as one would expect. An added holiday element to a film often gives it even more enjoyment during this time of year. Silent Night follows Brian Godluck (Joel Kinnaman) who goes on a revenge rampage against the gang who killed his son the year before and took away his ability to speak after being shot. A Christmas action film that gives off John Wick ideas turns out to be a draining story with action sequences that have only one track.
Silent Night is a downward spiral of a script with no array of feelings other than deep depression and sorrow. It sucks the audience into a ditch of despair with absolutely no script elevation to help us climb out. Having the audience witness tragic event after tragic event feels like a manipulation to get us to feel sad for Brian when it really just causes us to hope he meets an end where he doesn’t have to suffer anymore and we don’t have to either.
Seeing Brian so upset about his son and his wife, who eventually can not live with him anymore, causes any feeling person to want to see him happy again but the film’s script plays out where there is no changing past events and unfortunately no light at the end of the tunnel. This creates a difficult spot to put the audience in because in an industry where we are always rooting for our main character, wanting him to see he has a life worth living, Silent Night does the opposite.
It paints a world where Brian’s only way out of despair is to murder everyone involved in his son’s killing which still would never make him happy or bring back his son. Thus, it actually puts the thought out there that Brian would be better off dead, which is a frightening angle to play.
Given Brian’s injury severed his vocal cords, there is little to no dialogue in the film. The silent gimmick of the film made it difficult to forge any connections between characters. Dialogue isn’t needed to make an impact but in John Woo’s case it hindered the story he was telling because he didn’t allow Brian make connections with anyone in the film, thus hindering any type of emotion. It seemed the “silent” aspect was in place to play on a holiday song when it wasn’t utilized instead to create a meaningful script. Not to mention the film utilizes no holiday elements to coincide with its title other than his rampage being on December 24th.
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All of the action is done with gun violence, rather than choreographed fights or other enjoyable action sequences, making it difficult to sit through scene after scene of the same material. Silent Night will probably not be a holiday classic or one to return to every year when looking for any type of enjoyment during the Christmas season.
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