Silent Night Review Roundup: What Critics Are Saying About The John Woo Christmas Movie
John Woo's action thriller Silent Night is one of the few Christmas films hitting theaters this 2023 holiday season. It was officially released in the United States on Friday, December 1st, and reviews were consistent with reviews of Silent Night .
John Woo is known for his Hong Kong action films such as Hard Boiled , The Killer and others before moving to Hollywood and branching out into major franchises such as Mission: Impossible 2 and two franchises that became fan favorites such as Face Off” developed. In his first film in six years, Silent Night , Joel Kinnaman plays a father whose son is killed in a drive-by shooting on Christmas Eve, sustaining an injury that causes him to lose his voice. Next Christmas he wants revenge.
So was the film a huge critical success? Do they move it? Or is it somewhere in between? Read on for a full look at critics' reactions to Silent Night .
Published by November 28th.
Rotten Tomatoes : 75%
Metacritic : 53
Rotten Tomatoes rated Silent Night as "Fresh", with 75% of critics giving the film a positive review. Considering that a film must have a critic score of 60% or higher to be considered "new," this is a good start for the film as more reviews are expected to be released in the coming days.
Metacritic , another major review aggregation site, rates things differently: films have different tiers in which they are ranked based on an assigned rating from 0 to 100. Silent Night received a Metacritic rating of 53, meaning "Mixed or Average." The highest rated Metacritic review is an 80 from Frank Shack of The Hollywood Reporter, while the lowest score is a 25 from David Ehrlich of Indiewire.
How is Silent Night different from other new films coming out on December 1st? Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway's psychological thriller Ellen received a 90% "Certified Fresh" rating from Rotten Tomatoes and a 74 "Generally Positive" rating from Metacritic .
The December 1st concert film “Renaissance: A Beyoncé Film” will be in theaters on December 1st, but there are no reviews for it yet.
On the streaming side, more traditional Christmas fare Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy is coming to Prime Video on December 1st, but no reviews for Candy Cane Lane were available at the time of publication.
Another interesting comparison is between Silent Night and the 2022 Christmas film A Violent Night. It ended with a "Fresh" rating of 74% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a "Mixed to Average" rating of 55 on Metacritic.
Silent Night will be released exclusively in US cinemas on December 1st. The film premiered on December 23rd on Sky Cinemas in the UK.
