You know a film’s going to be good whenever there is a proud father trying to defend his daughter’s life against the dangers caused by third parties or by the father’s own actions. In the case of Silent Night, it is complicated to decide if everything played is interesting or just another plot for the bunch.

Mark (Bradley Taylor) has just gotten out of jail and the first thing he decides to do is rebuild his life with a decent job that will keep him away from his past criminal life and close enough to the daughter he loves. Unfortunately for Mark, some bad seeds from his past show up to sabotage his present and in the absence of a stable job, he feels compelled to resume the activities that landed him in prison. Now that he has managed to regain the life that gave him certain luxuries, he must also take care that the person he loves the most, his daughter, is not affected by this. Will he be able to protect his daughter from the results of his illicit activities, or will she pay for her father’s sins?

Silent Night starts off in a tedious way with little mystery and suspense that can leave you thirsty for more. However, everything changes from the second act as new elements enter the scene: the colors increase, more characters are introduced, a new unusual way storytelling is introduced, and dark comedy comes in to spice up the dialogue beyond scrambling around with the F-word all the way through the first act— for a moment it looked like it was about to be a limited script.

Is it violent? A little. Is it gory? It could’ve been but I guess there wasn’t much happening to justify it. It contains many elements seen before in modern gangster films that are still enjoyable but, in this case, it doesn’t make sense when it’s only plastered as patches to connect different plot points that could’ve been improved with better storytelling— it gets interesting halfway through the story but it declines by the time it’s in the middle of the third act. The acting is superb but the cast only could do much with the lines given to portray their characters.

Silent Night could do better with a different title that hasn’t been used many times before. By the time the film ends, you might find it hard to see if you were watching a gangster action thriller or a heist film with the insane amount of twists the story has towards the end. As a bonus, try not to question why the main theme playing is “Carol of the Bells” when the title refers to another Christmas carol.

5 OUT OF 10 PUNCHES