Silent Night (2023)

Plot of Silent Night: Brian Godlock and his wife and small son live in a suburb of Las Palomas, Texas. When they are playing on their front lawn with their son a shoot-out between two vehicles in a gang war results in the son being killed. Brian runs after one of the vehicles and disables it, but he is shot in the throat by the gang leader, but not killed. When he gets out of hospital he is depressed and has limited interaction with his wife by text message, resulting in her leaving him. He pulls himself together and decides that he is going to kill the gang who killed his son, so he trains, becomes a crack shot and learns how to drive a high power, but dilapidated Mustang. He goes to the police and is able to recover essential information about the gang which he uses, eventually strapping on his bullet proof vest arming himself and taking them on.

Content: No sex or nudity. Brian drinks a lot and in the gang headquarters Playa the leader injects his girlfriend with something. We see the gang war taking place between two motor vehicles with the gang member shooting at each other. Brian’s progress from being an electrician to being a killer is like an economy version of the Batman story. This actually includes a similar event where he takes on a gang member in his workshop and comes close to losing his life. There is a moment when he becomes involved accidentally in a gang war gun battle and attempts to rescue an injured policewoman. When the police are involved we hear their broadcast messages. We also see the gang member’s text messages.

A View: I came upon this movie, knowing absolutely nothing about it and so to start with had no idea where it was going, but it gradually became clear as time passed that it had a rhythm not unlike that of “The Raid” or “Dredd” and that similarly it had little or no dialogue. I can only say that John Woo knows what he is doing. This is a shoot’em up, so if you like them give it a shot.

Fun Fact: Brian only says two words in the entire film.