John Wick

 



It’s awesome. Surprising everybody, John Wick turns out to be is a highly entertaining movie that re-establishes Keanu Reeves as a legitimate action star. The movie is great and he’s great in it.

John Wick has just lost his wife to cancer. He’s a stoic, seemingly emotionless man, who seems somewhat lost without his wife. He receives a dog from his late wife, something that helps him start to grieve for his wife. Russian gangsters break into his house, beat him up, smash his stuff, steal his car and, the very worst of it, kill his dog. Big mistake. John Wick is actually a retired hitman with a fearsome reputation. And he wants revenge for his dog. Thus he suits up, arms himself to the teeth and goes on the hunt for the gangsters, one of whom is the jackass son of Viggo, a powerful Russian mobster, and Wick’s former employer.  Soon Wick is slaughtering his way through Russian gangster, rival hitmen and dozens upon dozens of goons.

The plot works well in its seeming simplicity. It seems like a standard action-revenge flick, but it’s a bit smarter than that. Or, at least, it’s been given a smarter treatment. It’s shot exceedingly well and the acting is top notch, even when it veers into over-the-top caricatures (some of the Russian gangsters are a bit silly). The best thing is that everybody else in the movie already knows who Wick is, and rightly fears him. It’s a small detail, but it works really well in selling how the character.

Keanu’s emotionally empty persona works really well here as Wick. He gets his moment two thirds of the way through where he has a furious emotional outburst, and one remembers just how good Keanu is at crazy, angry outburst (Johnny Mnemonic isn’t great, but Keanu getting progressively angrier and more pissed off through it was memorable).

The movie also has an awesome layer of world-building when it comes to showing what a society of assassins might look like, and how it might run. ‘The Continental’, which acts as a private hotel, an exclusive club and an association for hitmen, is conveyed quite well, often subtly. The inner workings and ‘rules’ aren’t explicitly stated but make sense, with a ‘show don’t tell’ style of storytelling (the significance of golden coins doesn’t need to be overtly explained when the movie shows how they’re used). It’s smart without being condescending or obvious, much like most of the rest of the movie.   

The action scenes are awesome, especially since they have a central sort of ‘theme’ to them; close-quarters gunplay/fighting. I’m talking about fighting a guy with a gun who is a foot away from you. Wick is a powerhouse, utilising throws, strikes and rolling kicks to down goons before he finishes them off with a headshot. And it’s never just one goon, it’s usually two or three at a time. The kill count has to be close to seventy, or maybe even past that. Wick kills a lot of people, and thoroughly so. People are shot several times, often in the head, and stabbed a few times too.

There’s just something immensely watchable about John Wick. Not just the film, but the character too. It’s a great mark on Keanu’s career, and the best thing he’s done in ages. John Wick is a highly entertaining movie, the sort that makes you want to see more of it, and it receives my recommendation.