Silent Night

Directed by John Woo, Silent Night follows a grieving father (Joel Kinnaman’s Brian Godlock) as he embarks on a campaign of vengeance after his young son is killed in a drive-by shooting. It’s a thoroughly promising setup that’s employed to distressingly underwhelming effect by Woo, as the filmmaker, armed with Robert Archer Lynn’s screenplay, delivers a sluggish thriller that all-too-quickly collapses under the weight of its intriguing yet progressively untenable gimmick (ie there’s virtually no spoken dialogue within the proceedings) – with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by a palpably overlong running time and Sharone Meir’s low-rent cinematography. (The latter is especially disastrous during a dimly-lit climax that’s hardly as exciting or satisfying as one might’ve hoped.) And while the picture admittedly boasts a compelling stretch detailing Brian’s rigorous efforts at preparing for his violent revenge, Silent Night is mostly a hands-off affair that rarely, if ever, achieves the thrilling highs one might’ve anticipated based on the seemingly foolproof setup.

*** out of ****