Silent Night (2023)

Watched 11/30/23 (theater)

Some of the best bad meat head actors in Hollywood right now include Joel Kinnaman, John David Washington, Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Anthony Mackie, Billy Magnussen, Boyd Holbrook. I’d say all these guys have roles or moments where they rise above their meathead-ness. And they don’t come across as embarassingly over-the-top as the even lower class of meat head that is Mark Wahlberg, he’s in a class of his own. But often, these guys are just the dumb, aloof, wide-eyed hero who we can’t totally connect with because they have little to no personality.

I think part of it is their role choice, especially since like I said they all have their moments of what seems to be ascendance into a better class of actor. Maybe it’s just their agents, I don’t know. But movies like Silent Night are emblematic of these guys’ identities.

Joel Kinnaman stars in Silent Night as Brian Godlock (great name). He doesn’t really speak in this movie. He just makes his eyes really big every couple minutes. It’s pretty entertaining. Kinda like if Rick Flagg got shot in the neck and shut the fuck up for once in his life.

Anyways, Brian’s kid gets shot in the most random driveby gang war I have seen since Gran Torino, and he then gets shot in the neck after a poorly-planned in-the-moment revenge mission.

The opening third of the movie really had my attention more than the average revenge thriller. Woo scrapes a weird gooey melodrama over the burnt toast that is this plot. The burnt part being it’s a movie you’ve seen a hundred times. It’s also filled with weird transitions and shot selection that adds to the dreamy, off feeling. Luckily, my personal rating floor for these types of movies is pretty high and this one is exactly what was advertised.

After getting out of the hospital, Brian goes apeshit and devises a real(?) plan to kill every Mexican gangmember he sees. He even has a map that shows that Mexico is right next to California, just to remind him to kill specifically Mexican gang members. Problematic? Yeah probably, but I wasn’t really going to this expecting political correctness.

There are two kind of revenge movies.

1. You pissed off the wrong guy

2. You pushed him too far

“You pissed off the wrong guy” is when you do something bad to some guy who it turns out later on was a spec ops badass the whole time. Or he used to be a secret service member or military police and got out to live a quiet life. These movies are usually enhanced by some pretty fun, corny, expository dialogue by the bad guys about how they should have known whose wife they stabbed or whose grandpa they threw off a bridge. It also usually involves really high kill counts and really advanced weaponry, if you’re into that sort of thing. A guy with a volatile past. They pissed off the wrong guy. John Wick is a good example of this. 

“You pushed him too far” tends to be my favorite of the two types of revenge movies. I like seeing the normal guy have to figure out how exactly to bring those responsible to justice (kill them, always disappointing if he turns them over to the cops who didn’t do anything all movie). The bad guys decide to beat up on a seemingly mild-mannered individual who eventually decides he has had enough. He devises a plan. Maybe he pukes after his first kill. Maybe he screws up a few times with his plan. Maybe his weapons are makeshift. Maybe he isn’t that good at hand-to-hand combat. Luckily, Silent Night does all these things. Some other good examples would be Death Wish, Falling Down, and if you are looking for a more kid-friendly slant, A New Hope kind of counts. They burn the shit out of Luke’s aunt and uncle so he learns how go take on the empire after being a regular dude.

Silent Night pulls the neat trick of truly having almost zero dialogue and it works! The film takes a minute to get going but once it does the offbeat melodrama combines nicely with the above-average action. It’s no John Wick but it is still much more clear and well-choreographed than 90% of action movies you’ll see this year. Not a ton of “gun-fu” but quite a bit of shotgunning people in the chest and smashing cars while letting bullets fly. Fun stuff that never takes itself too seriously.

Overall, I’m happy a meathead like Joel Kinnaman took this job. Works well because you aren’t that unhappy that he isn’t talking; he’s fun to watch beat the shit out of bad guys. My one huge complaint is that there literally is ZERO Christmas in this movie, but that’s okay when you stick to the plan and put out a revenge movie that isn’t afraid to be exactly what it said it would be. I don’t need a larger point in a movie like this and I appreciated its commitment to focusing on Brian’s revenge.

6/10