My go-to app for looking up movie times is Flixster.  When searching the times for my usual Friday viewing, my intent was to see Dream Scenario.  It looks to be an off-the-wall, sort of dark comedy starring Nicholas Cage.  When opening the program, I expected to see it listed among the first titles.  Instead, the one at the top was something called Don’t Suck.  The second is Godzilla Minus One.  Raise your hand if you heard of either of these two films?  You are alone if you did because I did not join you.  I am also currently typing.  Anyway, when I finally got to number four, today’s selection, Silent Night (2023), I thought, well, I guess Dream Scenario comes out another weekend.  I was mistaken.  A little more sifting would have brought me to the twelfth choice, which was Dream Scenario.  Having watched Silent Night, I now wish I had kept going.  I have no idea about Dream Scenario, but I cannot imagine it being as bad as Silent Night.

Silent Night is a misleading title.  First, except for the final sequence, none of it takes place at night.  I guess it is supposed to relate to the fact that the event that gets things going is the death of Brian Godlock’s (Joel Kinnaman) son (Anthony Giulietti).  The opening scene sees him running through the streets chasing after the gang members whose stray bullets during a driving gun battle felled Brian’s boy.  He manages to catch up with them enough to see them kill each other, but there is one left.  He is Playa (Harold Torres), whose distinctive facial tattoos will later prove a detriment.  For now, he has the upper hand on Brian, standing over the injured dad and shooting him in the throat.  Brian survives, though his wound prevents him from being able to speak.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is why the movie is called Silent Night.  Upon getting out of the hospital some months later, he and his wife, Saya Godlock (Catalina Sandino Moreno), are grieving for their son.  She tries to carry on, but he is haunted by images of his time with his kid.  Brian spends most of his time in his garage, basically ignoring Saya.  Eventually, he decides that he is going to visit Detective Scott Vassel (Scott Mescudi), the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD officer in charge of investigating gang activity.  Sitting in the cop’s office, Brian sees the mugshots of many of the criminals on their wanted list, including Playa’s.  With so many targets and apparently so few arrests, Brian decides that he is going to take matters into his own hands.  Thus, he leaves before meeting Detective Vassel, who gets a glimpse of a grim looking Brian as he gets on the elevator.  Brian goes home, circles the next Christmas on his calendar as the day he is going to “kill them all,” and begins working on how to do so.  He possesses no kind of military training, being a sort of an everyday working man before the tragedy of last Christmas.  He starts by learning how to handle a knife by watching YouTube videos, you know, as you do.  He then graduates to getting firearms instruction at the local gun range.  Another key component is buying a used Ford Mustang, slowly converting the muscle car into a bullet proof tank with a Hemi.  Saya looks in on his growing obsession, and eventually realizes that she is not getting her husband back.  Thus, she has one last embrace with him on the couch before leaving him.  In other words, she walks out on him literally without saying a word.  Sorry, I could not resist.  As for Brian, next Christmas is approaching, but shortly before this he has a chance encounter with Playa in a parking lot.  He is about to murder him there, but the criminal is busy passing out money to local kids . . . because, huh?  I am not sure I have ever seen this behavior from a cinematic gangster.  At any rate, it would not have been in keeping with Brian’s grand plan.  It actually begins the day before Christmas, when he kidnaps Anthony Barello (Vinny O’Brien), a person with inside knowledge as to how Playa’s operation works.  After a brief tussle, Brian forces Anthony to write down everything he knows about the criminal organization before dumping Anthony on Detective Vassel’s doorstep.  Brian is now free to begin his assault on Playa and his men, though not before leaving a note for Saya and a train set at his son’s grave.  From here, it is the inevitable shooting and killing that you would expect from a movie directed by John Woo, with Brian’s souped-up Mustang taking a beating in getting to Playa’s stronghold.  Brian takes a beating, too, but is joined by Detective Vassel, who had also been given all the information he needed to make a case against the gangs along with Anthony.  Together, they sustain mortal wounds, though Brian completes his quest by murdering everyone he sees, the last one being Playa, who Brian strangles to death.  He then dies with visions of his son playing before him.  We close with Saya reading his note, which explains that he had no choice but to do what we just witnessed.

My synopsis of Silent Night is a little shorter than usual because there is not much to the film.  Part of this is because of the action.  The biggest factor, though, is the fact that there is literally no dialog.  As I mentioned in the last paragraph, it is called what it is because Brian does not have a single line throughout the proceedings.  Of course, this is physically impossible for him because of his injury.  Yet, none of the other characters speak throughout the movie.  I am not sure why they did this, other than John Woo perhaps thinking that it would be a gimmick that would get people interested in the movie.  One could also make the argument that a flick such as this does not need dialog.  What else do you need to know?  A guy loses his son and he decides to get revenge.  It is pretty straightforward.  Now, I do not necessarily wish to disparage Joel Kinnaman as an actor.  The last film I remember him in is the reboot of RoboCop (2014), though he was apparently in Suicide Squad (2016) and The Suicide Squad (2021).  As neither of those last two movies made a lick of sense to me, I do not remember his character.  I do recall him in RoboCop, but that is a little easier given that he was the star.  My point here is that with what Woo is going for in Silent Night takes somebody who perhaps has a bit more emotional range than Kinnaman.  He does angry fine, and I guess there is little else one needs to convey.  Yet, an audience needs something more to understand the feelings behind the anger.  Thus, not having any talking completely backfires.

Another swing and a miss on Woo’s part is calling the movie Silent Night.  It makes a mockery of one of the holiest carols of the Christmas season.  This is carried further if you are as familiar as many are in Western culture with this tune of the same title.  It is used throughout as a theme for the soundtrack.  To drive this point home, I will talk about one scene.  Playa’s girlfriend (who I cannot find a credit for) is seen by Brian as he stakes out the criminal den, gathering information.  Brian sees her through a window, and she looks sad.  He sees her again in the parking lot, this time noticing markings on the inside of her elbow, an indication that she has been shooting up heroine.  Later, while she is sleeping, Playa sneaks into the room and injects her with more of the drug.  Now, one of the lines in “Silent Night” speaks to “the dawn of redeeming grace.”  This refers to Jesus coming into the world to ransom us all from sin.  It gave humanity a second chance, meaning that everyone is able to come back, no matter how far from grace they might feel.  In the waning moments of the film, there is a moment when Brian gets the drop on Playa’s girlfriend, who had been toting an automatic weapon.  For a moment, he looks at her and she returns his gaze, and maybe this is a practicing Catholic speaking, but it seemed to me that the hurt of her lifestyle is apparent in her eyes.  Given what had been shown of her to this point, I though the movie was going to give us a glimmer of hope in keeping with the song and have this be the instant she receives that redeeming grace.  But, no, she uses the hesitation his sympathy causes to shoot him a few more times before she is killed by Detective Vassel.  This is all, of course, without touching on the act of revenge as not being a Christian act.  In short, this movie is a waste of time.

I suppose I should mention that I realized my mistake with Dream Scenario before I watched Silent Night.  I could have changed my selection, but I did not want to deal with the hassle.  I should have put in the effort to do so.  Oh well.  Perhaps one day I will come back around to Dream Scenario and correct this mistake?  In the meantime, I will just tell myself that Silent Night fits more with the Christmas movies I am correctly working on.  Please do not take that as a recommendation.