Silent Night review – wordless festive action extravaganza from John Woo | Action and adventure films

Veteran action director John Woo (Hard Boiled, Face/Off) returns with his trademark combination of bullet-strafed fight sequences, mawkish sentiment and slo-mo shots of pigeons. There’s a twist though: Silent Night plays out almost entirely without dialogue (there’s a bit of indistinct muttering and you can definitely pick out the word “ouch” on more than one occasion). Joel Kinnaman stars as Brian, a grief-stricken father who seeks festive vengeance on the gang members whose stray bullet took the life of his young son.

It’s an interesting exercise – a show-don’t-tell action extravaganza. But Woo resorts to such clumsy storytelling devices (Brian uses his kitchen wall calendar extensively, with entries reminding him to “kill them all” on 24 December) that the film is scuppered by its own gimmick.

Veteran action director John Woo (Hard Boiled, Face/Off) returns with his trademark combination of bullet-strafed fight sequences, mawkish sentiment and slo-mo shots of pigeons. There’s a twist though: Silent Night plays out almost entirely without dialogue (there’s a bit of indistinct muttering and you can definitely pick out the word “ouch” on more than one occasion). Joel Kinnaman stars as Brian, a grief-stricken father who seeks festive vengeance on the gang members whose stray bullet took the life of his young son.

It’s an interesting exercise – a show-don’t-tell action extravaganza. But Woo resorts to such clumsy storytelling devices (Brian uses his kitchen wall calendar extensively, with entries reminding him to “kill them all” on 24 December) that the film is scuppered by its own gimmick.