1h44 No dialogue, Very Angry Dad, John Woo and lots of action: It’s Silent Night on Prime Video

Twenty years we’ve been waiting for this: John Woo’s return to Hollywood after his last film in City of Angels, Salary with Ben Affleck. And for this long-awaited return, John Woo signs Silent Night, a Christmas revenge film.

The film opens with a chase in an alley shot in slow motion. A desperate man (Joel Kinnaman), wearing a Christmas sweater and blood on his hands, fights a disproportionate battle alone against two cars full of thugs.

He’s a collateral victim of a gang war, really scary people on the street and shooting each other at full speed. And of course, a stray bullet leaves its mark. A little boy, Brian’s son, a man in a Christmas sweater.

At the end of that opening scene, Brian gets shot in the throat and it’s a black hole. When he wakes up, he is in the hospital, badly injured and has lost the use of his voice. And this will become the central trick of the film, which contains practically no dialogue.

In the absence of words, John Woo must tell his story with images, with acting… in this case, it’s seeing Joel Kinnaman, with tears in his eyes, or with rage fueled by despair or murder.

What’s even more destabilizing is that John Woo silences all of his characters, as if they all lack any form of verbal expression.

After sinking into a severe depression, exacerbated by excessive alcohol consumption, Brian withdraws and decides to take revenge. To do this, he gives himself eight months to build a steely physique and, in short, learn to drive and fight like John Wick by watching tutorials on YouTube.

Meanwhile, his wife (Catalina Sandino Moreno) leaves him because he doesn’t listen and sees that he is locked in a stubbornness that can only lead to death.

Don’t expect John Woo from yesterday, though. It’s not the “heroic bloodbath” of the glory years of his career, nor is it the stuffy, over-the-top melodrama of his American period.

There was a time when John Woo kind of demonstrated how fun violence can be – cinematically, when it’s brilliantly shot.

Unfortunately, we do not find this vision in Silent Night. We don’t hang out with the good guys or the bad guys. There’s no nice aspect to the action sequences, which John Woo (a little too often) renders in slow motion and looks dated to the 1980s.

It keeps coming back to either the child’s death or the happy memories that are so much a blow to Brian.

We walk away with a bit of a taste of unfinished business and a bit of disappointment, while easily realizing the film’s full potential. Only the ultimate fans of the master of action can find what they are looking for with great pleasure.