10 Recent Movies That Wasted AMAZING Concepts
6. Mute Protagonist Seeks Revenge - Silent Night
Going by its trailer, Silent Night should've been a unique riff on director John Woo's signature "heroic bloodshed" brand of no-nonsense action cinema.
The concept is certainly a doozy - Joel Kinnaman stars as Brian Godlock, a father seeking to avenge his son's murder by a gang in a drive-by shooting.
The kicker? Brian himself is shot in the neck while pursuing his son's killer, leaving him with damaged vocal cords and unable to speak. And so, Brian is a mute action hero, with the majority of the film unfolding entirely wordlessly.
It's an extremely intriguing exercise on paper, to see how a pre-eminent action filmmaker and talented lead actor can reinvent a conventional genre template by taking dialogue out of the equation.
Yet despite a solid performance from Kinnaman and a few entertaining action beats courtesy of Woo, the no-dialogue gimmick - and yes, it is a gimmick - comes off more clunky and awkward than anything.
For reasons that presumably only make complete sense to Woo, because Brian can't speak, nobody in the movie does, not even Brian's wife (Catalina Sandino Moreno), as makes for more than a few unintentionally comedic exchanges in their home.
Between this, the generic, gossamer-thin narrative, and the mostly underwhelming action, this is a colossal squandering of a compellingly creative idea.