Film Review: John Woo takes a swing at Die Hard-type cult status with Silent Night

"Director John Woo made his reputation as a crafter of elegant thrillers, but Silent Night is a stripped-back revenge thriller that offers only flashes of Woo’s stylistic flourishes."

Silent Night

• Silent Night 
• ★★★☆☆
• Sky Cinema

Made, one imagines, for the constituency that believes Die Hard is the greatest Christmas movie of them all, Silent Night (16s) stars Joel Kinnaman as Brian Godlock, who is utterly devastated when his young son Taylor is killed by a stray bullet during a shoot-out between LA gangs.

Deranged by grief, and unable to communicate with his wife Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno), Brian sinks into a madness that erupts on Christmas Eve, when he vows to ‘kill them all’.

Director John Woo (Hard Boiled, Mission Impossible II) made his reputation as a crafter of elegant thrillers, but Silent Night is a stripped-back revenge thriller that offers only flashes of Woo’s stylistic flourishes.

Indeed, the most notable element is the absence of dialogue. 

Shot in the throat during the shoot-out that killed his son, Brian is effectively mute, and turns to savage violence as a means of expressing his despair and rage, with his ultimate goal the murder of G-7 gang leader Playa (Harold Torres).

Propulsive and spare as Brian wreaks his carnage, Silent Night is a sobering counterpoint to the festive season’s sentiment of goodwill to all men.