Brian Godluck is the main protagonist in the near wordless action-thriller film Silent Night.
After losing his son from the crossfire of warring street gangs on Christmas Eve, grieving father Brian makes it his hellbent mission to enact ruthless vengeance on the violent criminals who killed his son as well as taking his voice away and left him for dead on the anniversary the atrocity was committed.
He was portrayed by Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman, who played Takeshi Kovacs in Altered Carbon, Alex Murphy in the 2014 Robocop remake, and Colonel Rick Flag in the DC Extended Universe films.
Biography[]
Silent Night (2023)[]
On Christmas Eve 2021, Brian is first seen running through the streets of (fictional) Las Palomas, Texas with a mixed expression of rage and sadness. He chases a pair of cars on a mobilized high-speed gunfight through the city streets until one of the cars gets both passengers and driver killed before colliding with a fire hydrant. Intercepting the other shooters from around a corner, Brian grabs a lead pipe from a trash pile and bashes the front windshield in to make the car swerve around. This unintentionally gets their attention, causing Brian to flee on foot with the pursuers chasing him down a narrow alleyway with a flurry of bullets.
Reaching a loading zone, Brian thinks fast and manages to evade a forklift by jumping over it before the driver hits the brakes too late and is skewed to death on impact. The other person in the car who ducked in time, gets out with his gun drawn and shoots Brian in the lower back. Staggering away, Brian supports himself against a fence as he gets a glimpse of his shooter, the gang leader Playa. Without a word or a second thought, Playa ruthlessly shoots Brian directly in the neck before leaving him for dead.
Brian is then seen being rushed on a stretcher down a hospital corridor and in critical condition. His wife, Saya, arrives with her clothes stained in blood and frantically asking for Brian. As she breaks down in the hallway, we see him in the OR having the bullet removed before his throat wound is sown shut by the team of surgeons. Throughout this sequence, "Silent Night, Holy Night" by Frank Sinatra is hauntingly played in the background followed by an ethereal choir.
After the lengthy surgery is complete, Brian is placed in the ICU to recuperate. While he's unconscious and Saya is asleep nearby, the room is visited by Detective Dennis Vassel who covertly looms over Brian before taking his leave, but places his contact card on Brian's bedside on his way out. A few days pass and Brian wakes up coughing, much to Saya's relief. Brian finds himself unable to speak as the bullet from Playa's gun has severely damaged his vocal cords. When offered to use an EloctroLarynx by Saya, Brian rejects the device, bitter and defeated. Later, Saya helps Brian regain his mobility after he uses a walker.
By January 26 the following year, Brian is discharged from the hospital and is driven home by Saya. During the car ride home, Brian looks around the city from the car window to see the harmful effects the local gangs have on the neighborhood such as distributing illegal drugs to vulnerable kids and encouraging others to join the gang life via public service posters vandalized in graffiti. Brian can only look on dismayed from having lived in an awful place to raise a son. Once the couple arrived home, Brian gets out of the car with a cane for support and has a flashback of the time his son Taylor Michael would run up to Brian across their vibrant front yard whenever he came home from his electrician job. Now the yard looks devoid of life after Taylor's death. Once inside his home, Brian falls to his knees and breaks down in tears from seeing the unopened Christmas presents he and Saya had prepared for the holiday morning. Enraged and heartbroken, Brian starts smashing things in the living room until he finds a newspaper article about his son's shooting before tearing it up as well.
Abilities and Skills[]
- Strategic Planning: Since recovery, Brian spent the first couple months developing a master plan to gather information on the gangs who assassinated his son by looking at their files at the police station of their locations, present whereabouts, and comrades. After taking photographs of the main building that the boss was occupied, he gets one of the thugs for interrogation to provoke the police to take action against the others. This causes a gang war as a diversion for him to ride around the areas he studied and perform vehicular activities from his car. Once finishing each gang one by one he reaches the boss’s headquarters to fight his henchmen before placing a bomb inside a metal can with a wired line as a set trap to ambush the few men from behind which worked.
- Expert Combatant: Before leading to his throat condition he had no formal training, but afterwards during his downtime, he watched many online tutorials to learn how to fight in hand-to-hand combat turning him into a capable fighter. He studies martial arts (Krav Maga, Wrestling, and Knife Combat) by practicing with rag dolls showing proficiency in stabbing with a knife, grappling to the ground, and even handling physical threats up close with firearms.
- Expert Marksman: He trains proficient in wielding many different weapons assault rifles, pistols, and shotgun weaponry. After a year of continuous training, it was likely due to losing his voice which enhanced his mind’s focus ability and accuracy in aiming better as he managed to shoot directly at targets right in the center without a flinch becoming a formidable marksman.
- Peak Human Conditioning: Godluck started putting his body in core conditioning weight training with dumbbells, pull-up bars, and sit-ups/crunches leading himself into peak pinnacle shape to hold against multiple opponents on the battlefield bigger than him. He was strong enough to hit a thug to fall down the glass rear of his stairs and push to a wall cracking it, faster than average at anticipating many melee or projectile attacks as well as remaining active in enduring the stress of fighting each encounter. His physical toughness has resulted in being capable of easing off the inflicting pain of injuries as he rarely fazed from either being stabbed in the leg, shot multiple times in the chest (due to a bulletproof vest), or many beatings and still kept up with much strength in him.
- Proficient Driver: Brian has even taught himself how to drive more efficiently by drifting around in circles repeatedly til he stops precisely on point to the center. After mastering this skill he uses it with his modified car to perform vehicular warfare against multiple gangs on the streets simply with turns, twists, and bumps on a few enemies.
- Networking: He has even obtained surveillance on activities of crime going on around the state when using an SAT radio to listen to gangs during his spare time. Brian also managed to get a hold of one of the thug's cellphones to make contact with the boss known as Playa and took photos of his deceased members to provoke both as a warning and attention.
- Stealth: Godluck has skills in infiltrating enemy territory without giving notice as he climbs up a rail in one of a gang member’s house to turn on the lights which awakens him to investigate and get silently ambushed and captured by Brian.
- Indomitable Will: To be added