{"id":8116,"date":"2024-11-11T23:17:39","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8116"},"modified":"2024-11-11T23:17:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:17:39","slug":"silent-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/11\/silent-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Silent Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Silent Night<\/strong> (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 104 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence, drug use, some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Woo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Robert Archer Lynn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marco Beltrami\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Sharone Meir\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 1, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi), Harold Torres, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Vinny O\u2019Brien, Yoko Hamamura, Anthony Giulietti, John Pollack.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $8M (US)\/$11M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Cinema is a visual medium. It always has been, especially in the beginning. The technology to record sound on film did not yet exist meaning there was no spoken dialogue. Stories were told through imagery, action and intertitle cards. Acting was all about facial expressions and gestures. Once \u201ctalkies\u201d became the norm circa 1927, the face of cinema was changed forever. So endeth the history lesson.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In his first American movie in 20 years, high-octane action director John Woo (Face\/Off) goes back to basics with Silent Night<\/strong>, a kick-ass revenge flick set on Christmas Eve. The title refers not to the same-named Christmas carol, but the movie\u2019s total absence of dialogue. The actors never utter a single word. But don\u2019t take that to mean it\u2019s completely silent because it\u2019s not. Guns fire, tires screech, cars crash into each other, people punch and pummel each other and Marco Beltrami\u2019s melodramatic score plays through most of it. All the while, nobody says a word. They gesture, exchange looks and emote heavily like the silent actors of old. In less assured hands, this conceit might come off as cinematic self-gratification. In Woo\u2019s more than capable hands, it makes the movie rock!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot isn\u2019t anything new, but Silent Night<\/strong> is more about presentation than story. Still, it\u2019s a pretty damn good story. It\u2019s your basic revenge thriller about a grieving father, Brian (Kinnaman, Run All Night), who decides to take the law into his own hands after his 7YO son is killed by a stray bullet during a gang shootout in front of his house on Christmas Eve. After recovering from his own injuries, including a bullet to the throat that leaves him no longer able to speak, he spends the next year preparing to take down the scumbag drug dealer (Torres, Memory) and his gang. He gets in shape, gathers intel on his targets, collects an arsenal, learns to shoot like John Wick and drive like the Transporter. It becomes an obsession that costs him his marriage to Saya (Moreno, Maria Full of Grace).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Silent Night<\/strong> really kicks into full tilt boogie action gear when next Christmas Eve finally comes. Brian goes after the creeps with a bloody vengeance. He shoots, stabs, beats, punches and kicks his way to the top of the food chain. And where are the police during all this? Why, the same place they always are in movies like this, anywhere but where they should be. The only one who seems to even care a little is this one detective (rapper Kid Cudi, X) who left his card with Brian at the hospital. When he realizes what Brian is up to, let\u2019s just say he doesn\u2019t follow procedure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ve been a fan of Woo since I first saw The Killer in \u201991. I had never before seen a Hong Kong-style action movie and it blew me away. There was something operatic about it that made it stand out from the American actioners starring Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger and JCVD. He had his ups (Hard Target, Face\/Off) and downs (Mission: Impossible 2, Windtalkers) with his American films. His last one, 2003\u2019s Paycheck, I barely even remember. I\u2019m happy to report he comes back strong with Silent Night<\/strong>, his best work since Face\/Off. He dials it down a notch in terms of style (no slo-mo doves), but ups his game with some of the best action sequences I\u2019ve seen all year. The choreography is nothing less than balletic. This is action cinema at its finest, my friends.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting in Silent Night<\/strong> is on a different level. Not being saddled with lines to remember, the actors are free to let their physical selves do the talking. You can see the grief in every facial expression and every movement made by Kinnaman. Moreno makes her character\u2019s hurt palpable as she watches her husband transform into somebody she doesn\u2019t know and doesn\u2019t want to know. Torres hams it up to the skies as the villain of the piece. The scene where he dances with his drugged-out girlfriend while waiting for Brian to get to him is just crazy. I love, by the way, that he\u2019s headquartered in an abandoned factory like a Batman villain. There\u2019s not a shred of realism to Silent Night<\/strong>. It\u2019s just like a live-action comic book tinged with film noir.<\/p>\n

\u00a0My only gripe about Silent Night<\/strong>, and it\u2019s a small one, is that it takes a little longer than it should to get to the good stuff. At the same time, it\u2019s all absolutely necessary in order to understand the physical and psychological transformation of the protagonist. Either way, Silent Night<\/strong> is one of hell of a movie! It moves at a rapid pace, the main benefit of not being weighed down by a ton of expository dialogue. It\u2019s very violent and bloody which I love. It definitely earns its R. On a more personal note, I will be adding it to the list of movies I watch every Christmas. Maybe I\u2019ll make it a double feature with last year\u2019s Violent Night.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silent Night (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 104 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong bloody violence, drug use, some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: John Woo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Robert Archer Lynn\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marco Beltrami\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Sharone Meir\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 1, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Scott Mescudi (Kid Cudi), Harold Torres, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Vinny O\u2019Brien, Yoko Hamamura, Anthony Giulietti, John Pollack.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holiday-movies","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Silent-Night-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8266,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8116\/revisions\/8266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}