John Woo goes John Wick in Silent Night, his first US movie in 20 years, since 2003’s Paycheck in fact. And if Wick was all about people doing creatively terrible things to each other in beautiful choreographed ways, so is Silent Night, with the added gimmick that here no one speaks. Not that they speak much in John Wick, or in any revenge movie of any sort, come to that.
Charles Bronson was once the king of this sort of thing, but now Keanu rules the roost, with many jostling for some of the action. Here it’s Joel Kinnaman, playing Brian Godlock, an average sort of guy thrust onto the path of murderous payback after his son is killed by a stray bullet in a gangbanger confrontation.
Sustaining a bullet wound to the throat in the process, Godlock’s injury springs from Woo and his writer Robert Archer Lynn’s decision to try something unusual – shoot the whole film without dialogue. There is ambient sound, from police radios and news bulletins, the odd text here and there, and at one point a “fuck you” from a gagged gang member kidnapped by Godlock. But for the most part no words are uttered.
This, the film’s producer Erica Lee (a producer of John Wick) opined, was “going to be either a genius move or a disaster. There’s no in between.” Oh yes there is. The lack of dialogue turns out to be neither entirely mad, nor inappropriate nor disadvantageous to plot or character – there’s not much of either in any revenge movie after all – but it does keep re-asserting itself as a deliberate working method, which drains the movie of some of its immersive power.
All that said, it’s nice to see Woo is still motoring in his late 70s – he hadn’t made a movie of any sort for six years at this point – and that a “tight” (his description) budget and shooting schedule has forced him to switch into a looser way of working, something he seizes hold of with enthusiasm. So don’t expect the Woo of Hard Boiled or The Killer, with the editing suite at least as important as the actors. Here we’re more in the moment, with DP Sharone Meir’s controlled camera and the reactions on Kinnaman’s face as Brian goes from pasty, mute suburban dad to raging revenge machine via a lengthy montage sequence in which he learns all the skills necessary to sustain a lengthy stunt-filled finale of knives and guns and rubber-burning vehicles.
The entire film is a montage sequence, though, to be honest, but a good one. Props to the droves of stunt performers and whoever is driving the cars and bikes. Between scenes that would probably be no more informative but a bit less angular if someone said something and broke the tension the stunt guys get to do their thing, while Kinnaman runs through all the alternatives suggested by his thesaurus of snarls.
Woo fans will enjoy the Woo staples: the references to doves; the use of slo-mo; ironic use of music; dramatic zooms; and occasional moments of violence so explosive they’re funny – one gangster sliding off the roof of Godlock’s car in a viscous slick of his own blood made me laugh out loud it was so gruesome. And Godlock’s calendar with “KILL THEM ALL” scrawled in for Christmas Eve – forgot to say it’s a Christmas movie! – is also grimly funny.
Catalina Sandino Moreno is also in it, as Godlock’s increasingly desperate wife. She gets maybe a couple of words, which makes her the most talkative person in the movie, but largely gets by on big wet tears rolling down her face. A couple more than Kid Cudi, here going by his real name of Scott Mescudi, as the cop on the case who will eventually end in some kind of bromantic double act with Godlock that is also typical Woo.
It’s obvious Woo really wants to remake Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I wish he would. Until then, we have Woo’s remake of his own The Killer to look forward to, with Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy in the lead roles. A woman and a man. Bromance might have to take a day off for that one.
Silent Night – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024
