John Woo’s SILENT NIGHT is the Best Silent Film of the Century: A Review

The double meaning of John Woo’s 2023 actioner, Silent Night, only dawned on me while viewing the film for the first time. I have increasingly come to find knowing less about a story, even a trailer, makes a more enriching experience than if going on knowing minute details about the production. Plot details, clips, stills, making ofs, articles, interviews are so accessible and encouraged by the film’s promoters that such knowledge, I have found, weakens that all-important first viewing.

With Silent Night, I only knew it was somehow hailed as John Woo’s return to form, at least in American film. That did not exactly mean it was going to be something transcendent. Unfortunately, Woo’s American era did not exactly live up to his sheer talent and output from his earlier Chinese efforts. Looking back on the filmography, one wonders if Woo simply chose the wrong projects, or if he was chained by his own accomplishments as a master of onscreen action.

Woo’s arrival in America was greatly lauded, coming off major efforts like Hard-Boiled (1992), The Killer (1989), and the wrenching Vietnam film, A Bullet in the Head (1990). Instead, his debut was a Jean Claude van Damme vehicle, Hard Target, widely panned in 1993. The reception set the stage for Woo’s U.S. period, despite a string of commercial successes with Broken Arrow (1996), Face/Off (1997), and Mission: Impossible II (2000).

And so it was with excitement and also not a lot of expectation in which I settled into Silent Night. The plot alone ensnared me from the compelling opening sequence. Joel Kinnaman is Brian, an electrician who lives for his wife, Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and son, Taylor Michael, in gang-infested Las Palomas. We see a bullet from a gang war driveby struck and killed Taylor, leading Brian to desperately try to immediately hunt down the killers. The attempt nearly kills Brian. Indeed, a resulting gunshot to the neck leaves Brian unable to speak.

And therein lies the double meaning of the film’s title. Silent Night, which spans a year from one Christmas Eve to another, is also a play on Brian’s inability to talk. As such, the film is nearly without dialogue. To Woo’s credit, this is not played as a gimmick, as there are some passing words and atmospheric chatter and background noise. But it’s a reflection of Brian’s physical silence, but certainly not his interior state of mind: the wordlessness only sharpens his obsession for vengeance.

I choked up on not a few occasions. The tragedy of the son’s murder was painful. As a father myself, I could not dare to imagine the horrific, nightmarish scenario of losing a child. And in following Brian’s character, while I could not relate directly, I could identify with exactly what he set out to do — even at the cost of losing whatever semblance to his previous life he had. Nothing could bring his son back, but he poured whatever he had left of his own life to at least making it right.

In classic Woo storytelling, Brian is paired, rather reluctantly, with Detective Vassel (Kid Cudi), who team up for the relentless assault on the gang leader’s lair. Admittedly, much of this final act plays like a video game — a medium I am not entirely familiar with — but Woo’s artful shot constructions and undeniable command of mise-en-scene raises it to heart-pounding rhythm; the action sequences, the entire tone of the film, evokes an energy that defies Woo’s 77 years. It is violent and not exactly entertaining, as it should be. The gravitas of the story and Brian’s character arc as realized by Kinnamon make the eye-popping stunts and choreography secondary; this is not a forgettable B-movie Redbox actioner.

And to the credit of the creators of the trailer, who downplayed the silent aspect of the film, rather than do what most trailers fall prey to time and time again: overstay its welcome by revealing too much and kowtowing to the audience with annoying winks and Easter eggs.

Silent Night might be not only the century’s best silent film, but also Woo’s most accomplished and emotionally involved U.S. film.