Silent Night Movie Review is a blast of style from a director who understands how to wring emotion out of the most brutally physical scenes. The film pays tribute to Leone while pushing him farther into the operatic realm.
Unlike most action movies, Silent Night is essentially dialogue-free. The exceptions are chipper radio personalities and police scanner traffic.
Apocalyptic Premise
Whether it’s Roland Emmerich’s big, loud 2012 or Lars von Trier’s pensive Melancholia, the prospect of humanity’s extinction has been the source of plenty of movies. Silent Night, however, focuses on a group of rich British friends and their ideas about money, safety and empathy with the rest of the world. The result is a comedy that’s both dryly funny and bleak.
The premise is straightforward enough: a toxic gas cloud is coming their way, with a 100% kill rate. It’s been blamed on the Russians (because of those Commie rat bastards, of course), and everyone has an official “Exit” pill that they can use to avoid suffering.
The film’s characters are all one-dimensional archetypes, and while the idea of them kowtowing to their kids’ petty demands in the face of certain death is certainly entertaining, it doesn’t make for compelling drama. But despite these shortcomings, Silent Night is still a solid return to action-flick form for director John Woo. And his cinematographer and editor are definitely on point. There’s a lot of blood, and a few gut-wrenching moments.
Black Comedy
While the movie is primarily an action film, it also offers a surprisingly thoughtful rumination on the nature of violence. With little-to-no spoken dialogue, Woo’s expert handling of the sequences creates a sense of pure, visceral emotion. From the cross-cut montage that demonstrates Brian sinking deeper into his mania, to the ludicrous maximus car chases with shootouts, the action in Silent Night benefits from superior filmmaking.
The movie’s most important moment occurs at the halfway point, when it becomes clear that the twisters are carrying poison gas that could kill in a few short weeks. Nell and Simon’s son, Art (Jojo Rabbit star Roman Griffin Davis), is distrustful of the government’s offer of “exit pills” that would deliver a painless death, and decides to fight back.
Unlike similar end-of-the-world stories such as Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Melancholia, and Last Night, the 123movies film doesn’t spend time defining its good guys or bad guys. In fact, the only character who is developed any further than a generic gangster is Playa, whose motivations are vague.
Family Drama
When posh Brits Nell (Keira Knightley) and Simon (Matthew Goode) and their kids gather for Christmas at their country estate, the drinks are flowing and the interpersonal drama is a-brewin’. But director Camille Griffin doesn’t quite pull off her attempted takedown of the yuppie set; the one-dimensional narcissism and blatant racism of Sandra (Annabelle Wallis) and snotty-nosed Alex (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), not to mention the bargain-basement Ab Fab dynamic, only come across as smug and irritating rather than bitingly funny.
When the film finally gets around to the carnage, however, it is in full blast mode. A wordless chase sequence reveals Brian’s restless vengeance against the men who killed his son, most notably the seemingly indestructible gangster Playa (Harold Torres). As the blasting of bullets and glass breaks and cars explodes, minimal dialogue translates into minimal characterization. But the virtuoso action — often rendered in breathtaking slow motion — keeps things from growing stale. Moreover, Griffin occasionally interrupts the violence with elegiac flashbacks and projections that reveal the deep grief at the heart of this unrelenting vigilante fantasy.
Action
The slasher conventions are a bit too on the nose, and there’s no real depth to any of the characters. But Joel Kinnaman delivers a strong performance as the father whose vengeance – fueled by ho-ho-homicidal projections and happy memories – becomes a path of destruction. The director’s son (Jojo Rabbit’s Roman Griffin Davis) also turns in a solid supporting turn, playing the detective on the case with a mix of hard stares and text messaging.
The movie’s no-dialogue aspect works well, but it is a gimmick. And, truth be told, it wouldn’t have been quite as effective if John Woo had allowed his characters to talk. Making a comeback to the American action genre after 2003’s mediocre Paycheck, the Hong Kong auteur crammed two decades worth of filmmaking into the opening sequence alone. He kicks things off with a wordless chase scene that features Godlock sprinting after gang members while a 3D Rudolph balloon drifts overhead and a music box twinkles. The cliches may eventually wear thin, but the virtuoso action is more than enough to make up for it.
Overall
Silent Night tries hard to be something of everything, but the mix is too cluttered for anything to emerge as particularly memorable. The characters’ selfish whims, as seen through Keira Knightley’s Nell, make for a light satire of the British upper middle class at Christmastime. It’s a shame the film never delves more deeply into that obnoxious behavior, because it’s an interesting concept.
The movie’s gimmick is that Kinnaman’s character loses his voice early on, meaning no one speaks throughout the film, save for snatches of text messages and police scanner traffic. This adds to the tension of the movie, but also creates some challenges for Griffin’s script.
Robert Archer Lynn struggles to keep the premise believable, resorting to gimmicky exposition and unlikely moments of silence between characters. It’s a shame, because Woo once again shows off his legendary acuity with action staging and the actors deliver dedicated performances. Unfortunately, the movie’s clumsy end can’t help but read as a response to recent events, and it feels like a missed opportunity.