Every year, there’s always some kind of an award for audio description. Not that it reaches mainstream audiences, but for a blind film critic like myself, I’m very aware. If the team at Deluxe and William Michael Redmond aren’t nominated, simply nominated, the actual award itself means nothing. It would be like trying to compete in an athletic event where the obvious choice has somehow been disqualified. It puts a bit of a damper on your win, because the tiger in the fight wasn’t, so you don’t actually know if the win you got was earned.

There is zero question in my mind that Silent Night is just an exercise in audio description, much like No One Will save You. These dialogue free action heavy films almost turn into audio books because there really isn’t anything being given to us from the film. It is all about the audio description. Whether or not a blind audience member can even watch this lives and dies based on the quality of accessibility. The good news, is that this is great.

I’ve long discussed that Redman is a perfect choice for the horror and action genres, and he lends his super serious gruff tone to this revenge shooter that brings John Woo back to America for the first time in 20 years. The film itself is not particularly interesting, as it just recycles the plot of The Punisher, and puts it at Christmas. I wish I could talk about the performances, but no one speaks, so it’s all in Redman’s narration.

I do love Joel Kinnaman when he’s on For All Mankind, so I’m glad he’s still getting film work. Even if that work is rather generic. But, now I have a digital copy to pull out anytime I want to explain audio description to anyone, because this is such a great representation of the work people put in to bridge the gap for blind audiences. the audio description is relentless in the best ways, and it’s definitely on my Top 10 list of audio descriptions from the past year.

When there is no dialogue, every single thing has to be described, and when you have an intentionally visual director like John Woo, there will be a lot of stylized fighting to translate. For anyone who loves audio description, you owe it to yourself to watch this at some point.

Final Grade: C+