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This review was originally published on December 1.
We are recirculating it now timed toSilent Nights digital release.
The cars split open and spin in slow motion in the air.
A red balloon drifts, quietly, above and away from the mayhem.
Then, our supposed hero gets shot in the throat and all is blackness.
ButSilent Nightturns out to be something very different from anything Woo has done before.
Watching him stand in front of a mirror, trying to scream, we connect with his impotence.
The lack of dialogue does seem to have rejuvenated Woo.
(Unlike, say, Luc Bessons 1984 filmLe Dernier Combat, which worked a similar idea.)
This also places us deeper into Brians psyche.
Woo keeps these scenes going to an almost pathological degree.
The point is not that the bad guys are about to get theirs.
The point is that our hero has lost his mind.
In most of those films, there was an iconic, almost aspirational quality to the mayhem.
Woo reminded us of how fun movie violence could be when done with flair.
And he knew how to make an actor lookgreat.
He turned Chow Yun-fat into cinemas coolest action figure.
He turned Nicolas Cages psycho antics inFace/Offinto a walking manifesto of magnificent weirdness.
For all the butchery on display, we wanted to be these people.
But Woo isnt having fun inSilent Night.
Theres nothing to aspire to, among either the good guys or the bad guys.
The film doesnt have the simmering, anticipatory comeuppance of aDeath Wishor one of its many vigilante imitators.
Brians grief never deserts him the way it might had it been a mere plot gadget.
Instead, it colors everything he does.
The more Brian fights and kills, the less hes able to move on.
Its all garish, nightmarish spectacle beautiful, terrifying, and poisonous.
