“John Wick” director David Leitch and his production company have already brought action thrillers such as “Nobody” and “Bullet Train” to the screen. His latest hit is now available for home viewing just two months after its release: “Violent Night”.
David Leitch, Kelly McCormick and their production company 87North have instantly become one of Hollywood’s hottest action addresses with “John Wick”. While Leitch’s directing partner Chad Stahelski has since directed the hitman saga with Keanu Reeves single-handedly, Leitch is also quite busy – both as a director and as a producer. Among others, he directed “Atomic Blonde”, “Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw” and “Bullet Train”, and on top of that he also brought brute entertainment such as “Kate”, “Nobody” and most recently “Violent Night” on the way. And it is precisely this film that is now finding its way from the cinema to home cinema within a short time:
While “Violent Night” has even been available digitally for a few days, the brutal Christmas action film will now also be available on DVD and Blu-ray from 16 February – just two and a half months after its theatrical release on 1 December.
By the way, it’s worth checking out not only for friends of films à la “John Wick”, but also for fans of director Tommy Wirkola. No matter whether the Norwegian unleashes Nazi zombies (“Dead Snow”) on people, dives into the world of fairytales (“Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters”) or completely derails a failed relationship (“The Trip”): Wirkola always relies on pitch-black humour, crazy-charming characters, plenty of blood and an extra portion of madness. And you get all of that in his most recent film “Violent Night”.
In the conclusion of the FILMSTARTS review, author Christoph Petersen writes, among other things: “‘Violent Night’ delivers really well in its particularly drastic moments, when extra blood or vomit splashes.” The fact that there is always unnecessary idle time between the “crassly creative spikes of violence” is as much a pity as it is unnecessary. So anyone expecting a new “Die Hard” from this Christmas actioner is misguided. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the trade press and the audience were very enthusiastic about “Violent Night” and the film was correspondingly successful at the box office.
With production costs of a slim 20 million dollars, the action fun with a rather prominent cast grossed a good 76 million dollars – and even made “Violent Night 2” possible, which is already being worked on. The author of this article, at least, thinks this is good news. If Wirkola proved one thing with his only sequel to date (“Dead Snow 2”), it’s that he knows how to take the qualities of the predecessor to the extreme and go two or three steps further.
THIS IS WHAT “VIOLENT NIGHT” IS ABOUT
Christmas Eve is just around the corner, and with it the exorbitant celebrations of the filthy rich Lightstone family. But on the most contemplative of all days, their lives are made hell by a group of mercenaries (including John Leguizamo, “The Menu”): the heavily armed commando invades the family home and takes the Lightstones hostage. Their target? A safe containing many millions of dollars.
What the intruders don’t know, however, is that they are all (of course) on Santa’s naughty list (David Harbour, “Stranger Things”). And he, of course, got wind of their deeds right away and has no intention of letting the bad guys get away with it…
