I had fairly high hopes for John Woo’s Silent Night, though it never managed to rise above being a movie based on a gimmick (a modern movie – almost – entirely without dialog).

The idea is interesting though the way the movie goes about doing it is really odd in that Brian Godlock (Joel Kinnaman) is shot in the throat, so no one else has dialog!?

Why the producers didn’t have Godluck shot in the head as opposed to the throat is a bit confusing because if that had happened, while he could have survived the shot, it might have (in the world of the movie) resulted in him losing his hearing.

Then the movie would be from his perspective, so – unlike what actually happened – you’d see people talking, but there would be no sound which came off more than a little bit gimmicky.

Most importantly, the lack of dialog would be organic to the movie’s scenario.

Luckily, John Woo is among the most interesting action directors working today, and while that didn’t make the movie’s central conceit work any better, the action was very well-done.