'Silent Night,' John Woo's return to Hollywood movies, doesn't make much noise or much sense

If you have ever watched a bone-crunching action film and thought, you know, this thing is so stupid you could watch it without dialogue, John Woo has made the movie for you.

The legendary director (“A Better Tomorrow,” “The Killer,” “Face/Off”) has dispensed with the middle man, as it were — “Silent Night” has no dialogue to speak of. (Oof. Sorry.) There are police dispatches on scanners and a few muddled sentences here and there, but for the most part Woo lets the action, and the violence, speak for itself.

Which is probably for the best.

This is a straight-up revenge movie, dark stuff. It’s also kind of fun, in that “WHOA!” way, like when you’re having a beer in a sports bar and they’re playing skateboarding-fail videos on all the screens because the football games are over. Woo knows his way around a fight scene, for sure.

Who's in the new movie 'Silent Night?'

Joel Kinnaman, by far the best thing about both “Suicide Squad” and “The Suicide Squad” (a low bar, but still), plays Godlock (though he’s never identified during the film).

The film opens with him sprinting after a runaway red balloon and two cars full of gang members firing automatic weapons at each other. He’s wearing an ugly Christmas sweater, Rudolph variety, only blood-stained. Soon, without explanation, he has managed to kill most everyone, except for one surly, tattoo-faced fellow who shoots him in the throat.

So a Christmas Eve shooting has rendered him without speech. “Silent Night” — get it?

But Godlock isn’t the only victim. The red balloon belonged to his son, who was killed in the crossfire. Godlock falls into a bottle, drinking all day, ignoring his wife Saya (Catalina Sandino Moreno), with whom he communicates by texts when he communicates at all. This allows her to share things like, “I’m hurting, too.”

They leave the Christmas decorations up as weeks pass, with presents for their son under the ever-browning tree. Eventually, Saya has had enough and leaves.

Silently, of course.

A murderous training montage is the centerpiece

A cop (Scott Mescudi, better known as Kid Cudi), left a card for Godlock when he was at the hospital. When Godlock finally goes to the police station, he sees a mug shot of the heavily tattooed man who shot him and his son, along with accomplices. Something clicks inside him.

Thus begins the centerpiece of the film: the training montage. Remember in “Rocky” when Rocky drank the raw eggs and finished his run by scaling the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art? Remember in “Creed III” when Adonis punishes himself back into shape for the big fight?

This is like that, sort of, only much longer and with guns and knives and a salvaged, souped-up Mustang. And Godlock isn’t going to fight his opponents. He is going to flat-out kill them. If there were any question, he makes a notation for Dec. 24 in his calendar: “KILL THEM ALL.”

There’s something to be said for setting goals.

We never know what it is Godlock does for a living — there’s as much character development as there is dialogue in this film — but given where he starts and where he ends with his training, it doesn’t involve fighting or weaponry. (Which doesn’t explain how he was able to dispatch the gang guys at the beginning, but logic, too, is in short supply here.)

Is 'Silent Night' a good movie?

This is a John Woo film, so what we’re waiting for is the fighting. Yet the first fight, which takes place in Godlock’s kitchen and laundry room, is anything but elegant and balletic, and all the better for it. It’s messy, sloppy, unusual, anything but graceful. (Hitting a guy in the face with a washing-machine door is a nice touch.)

It’s all leading to a showdown, of course, with the man who shot him: Playa (Harold Torres). Godlock’s fight up an endless flight of stairs against Playa’s underlings is, while impressive, more of what you expect from this kind of film — tightly choreographed, bad guys couldn’t hit a bull in the butt with a bass fiddle while Godlock can’t miss, that kind of thing.

Ultimately it’s a little underwhelming, given all the excess.

The same is true for the slight, slightly fun “Silent Night.”

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'Silent Night' 2.5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: John Woo.

Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Harold Torres.

Rating: R for strong bloody violence, drug use and some language.

How to watch: In theaters Friday, Dec. 1.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X, formerly known as Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Is 'Silent Night' a Christmas movie? Sort of. Mostly a lump of coal