Silent Night

Some stylish visual flourishes put John Woo’s stamp on Silent Night, but the predictable script isn’t up to his standards.

The legendary Hong Kong director’s first American film in two decades is a pale imitation of the type of gritty genre thrillers that became his calling card decades ago. It’s a twist on a standard-issue vigilante revenge saga that’s more gimmicky than suspenseful.

It opens with a man sprinting through a rundown neighborhood with an ugly Christmas sweater and a bloody hand, serenaded in the background by sirens and gunfire.

The circumstances for Brian (Joel Kinnaman) turn worse before the become better as we eventually learn the details of his predicament. His physical and emotional wounds stem from a tragedy as an innocent bystander due to pervasive gang violence.

Already grieving, the Christmas Eve incident severely damages Brian’s vocal cords, which leaves him depressed and withdrawn. That triggers an unspoken rift with his wife (Catalina Sandino Moreno). Meanwhile, a police detective (Scott Mescudi) begins investigating the attack on Brian, who’s more concerned with vigilante justice.

He trains himself in his basement by watching self-defense videos online, and gears up with an arsenal of weaponry with a singular focus — to avenge his family by infiltrating a street gang and killing its ruthless leader (Harold Torres), or to die trying.

The lack of dialogue presents a unique challenge for Woo and his actors. Kinnaman offers a fully committed performance in which he’s forced to communicate primarily through body language and facial expressions.

The screenplay gets inside Brian’s head while struggling to generate sufficient emotional investment in his cause as it funnels toward an inevitable life-or-death showdown.

As a character study about processing trauma and seeking closure, it strains credibility and lacks the moral complexity to make a deeper impact.

But maybe such scrutiny misses the point of a film that’s more about visceral vengeance and brute force, highlighted by a handful of creatively choreographed confrontations with generic thugs and scoundrels.

As such, Silent Night comes alive in the final half-hour, when it curtails the brooding and macho posturing and gets down to business. You just wish it had something to say.

Rated R, 104 minutes.