Is “Silent Night” a Christmas movie? somewhat. Mostly a piece of coal
If you’ve ever watched a surprising action movie and thought, you know, this thing is so stupid that you can watch it without dialogue, John Woo made the movie for you.
The legendary director (“A Better Tomorrow,” “The Killer,” “Face/Off”) has cut out the middleman, such as it was — “Silent Night” has no dialogue to speak of. (Oh. Sorry.) There’s police correspondence on the scanners and some garbled sentences here and there, but for the most part, Wu lets the events and violence speak for themselves.
Which is probably for the best.
This is a straight up revenge movie, dark stuff. It’s also kind of fun, in the phrase “WHOA!” In a way, like when you’re having a drink at a sports bar and they’re showing videos of skating failures all over the screens because the football matches are over. Wu definitely knows his way around the battlefield.
Who is in the new movie “Silent Night”?
Joel Kinnaman, the best of both Suicide Squad and The Suicide Squad (low key, but still) plays Godlock (although he is never identified during the film).
The film begins with him running fast after a runaway red balloon and two cars full of gang members shooting automatic weapons at each other. He’s wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, Rudolph-type, just stained with blood. Soon, without any explanation, he managed to kill almost everyone, except for a scowling fellow with a tattooed face who shot him in the throat.
So the shooting on Christmas Eve left him speechless. “Silent Night” – got it?
But Goodlock is not the only victim. The red balloon belonged to his son, who was killed in the exchange of fire. Goodlock falls into a bottle and drinks all day, ignoring his wife Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno), with whom he communicates via text when he communicates at all. This allows her to share things like: “I’m hurting too.”
They leave Christmas decorations as the weeks go by, along with gifts for their son under the ever-brown tree. In the end, Saya had had enough and left.
Silently, of course.
A killer training montage is the main focus
The cop (Scott Mescudi, known as Kid Cudi) left a card for Goodlock while he was in the hospital. When Goodlock finally goes to the police station, he sees a shot of the heavily tattooed man who shot him and his son, along with his accomplices. Something clicked inside him.
And thus begins the focus of the film: the training montage. Do you remember in the movie “Rocky” when Rocky drank raw eggs and ended his tour by climbing the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art? Remember the movie “Creed III” when Adonis punished himself to get back into shape for the big fight?
This is like this, sort of, for a much longer period and salvaged guns, knives and mustangs. And Godlock will not fight his opponents. It will kill them outright. If there’s any question, he writes December 24 on his calendar: “Kill them all.”
There is something to be said for setting goals.
We never know what Godlock does for a living — there’s as much character development as there is dialogue in this movie — but given where he begins and where he ends with his training, it doesn’t involve fighting or weapons. (This doesn’t explain how he managed to send the gangsters to begin with, but the logic is also lacking here.)
Is “Silent Night” a good movie?
This is a John Woo movie, so what we’re waiting for is the fighting. However, the first fight, which takes place in Godlock’s kitchen and laundry room, is neither elegant nor balletic, and all the better for it. It’s messy, dirty, unusual, anything but graceful. (Hitting a guy in the face with a washing machine door is a nice touch.)
It all leads to a confrontation, of course, with the man who shot him: Playa (Harold Torres). Goodlock’s fight down an endless flight of stairs against Playa’s henchmen, while impressive, is more of what you’d expect from this kind of movie – tightly choreographed, with the bad guys unable to kick Thor in the ass with a violin while Goodlock can’t that. Miss, that kind of thing.
In the end, it’s a bit disappointing, given all the excess.
The same goes for the slightly funky “Silent Night.”
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“Silent Night” 2.5 stars
Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★
Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★
exit: John Woo.
ejaculate: Joel Kinnaman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Harold Torres.
evaluation: R for strong bloody violence, drug use and some language.
How to watch: In theaters Friday, December 1.
Contact Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X, Formerly known as Twitter: @godic.
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