John Wick hits theaters October 24th
John Wick puts on a tailored suit before he does his killing.
And when he does his killing… he shoots people’s faces.
And when he shoots people’s faces… I enjoy it more than society would be comfortable knowing.
There won’t be much of anything in revenge-actioner John Wick that you’ve never seen before. The underworld’s best hitman manages to get out of the life and find love. Then a mafia boss’ son does something unforgivable to the absolute worst guy he could ever have done something unforgivable to. That puts all the dominoes into place that will spectacularly tumble throughout the rest of the film. So John Wick’s potential audience really won’t be lining up for something wholly original, or even kind of original. But on the flip side, when a movie is doing something we’re all familiar with, and puts a fresh coat of paint on it, goes the extra mile to do it right, and has an absolute blast displaying its mayhem to the world, the familiarity of it all feels more like a warm blanket than a stale retread.
And boy was I enjoying my comfort zone watching Keanu Reeves do terrible things to people in awesome ways. As always, Keanu is playing Keanu. The characters of this world are broadly sketched. The hero. The angelic/idealized/salvific wife. The screw up son of the rival gangster boss. The rival gangster boss (who understands John Wick’s code). The loose cannon assassins who may or may not be on the hero’s side. There’s not a lot of nuance going on here, and I didn’t need it. Most of the reason for that is the actors chosen to fill these various roles are clearly enjoying themselves. There’s HBO alumni all up in this movie, from Alfie Allen (Theon Greyjoy on Game Of Thrones) as Ioseph, who picks on the wrong guy, to The Wire alums Lance “Daniels” Reddick and Clarke “Lester” Peters, to Deadwood’s Ian McShane! Throw in Michael Nyqvist (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) as the rival gang lord and Willem Dafoe and Adrianne Palicki as wild card assassins, and you’ve filled out a remarkably entertaining cast adding enough energy and well-delivered quips that the lack of dimensionality fades into the background.
But let’s get back to the shooting of faces. Above all else, John Wick is a hard-R, elemental gun ballet. It appears that Keanu Reeves is entering into a phase in his career in which he collaborates with some of the behind the camera talent that he’s gotten to know over the many years of his time in front of the camera. For his directorial debut Man Of Tai Chi (which played at Fantastic Fest last year and was pretty awesome), Reeves chose Tiger Chen as his leading man. Chen had done action choreography on the Matrix films. With John Wick Reeves is back in leading man mode and longtime stunt men and second unit directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch take on directing duties. Stahelski and Leitch’s roots in the action genre are readily apparent here to such a degree that John Wick gives me hope that American action cinema isn’t actually dead. Sure, Marvel is cranking out gigantic sci-fi/action/superhero movies on the regular and hitting home runs left and right. But I’ve been looking to countries like Indonesia (Gareth Evans), Thailand (Tony Jaa), or Israel (Isaac Florentine) for my legitimate action cinema fixes in recent years. American director John Hyams has also shown great chops with his last few Universal Soldier films. But Chad Stahelski and David Leitch become real names to watch out for with this explosive calling card.
In set piece after set piece, Stahelski and Leitch show us what we want to see. And I do mean show us. With long, fluid shots Keanu will tear through attackers with guns, knives, and bare hands. Graphically, but never without a sense of fun. Old school car chases and practical stunt work abound. There are few cinematic thrills as great as seeing long, steady, smooth takes of hand to hand combat. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela does great work here in collaboration with the stunt and fight choreography teams to give exciting, fluid action sequences that can still impress even in the same calendar year as The Raid 2, which threw down a gauntlet to all other action cinema around the world.
On top of the great cast and excellently captured, hard-R action, there’s a very comic book tone to the movie which hasn’t worn out its welcome on me just yet. Some examples include an underworld hotel/club which all of criminal-dom have agreed to treat as sacred (no killing on these premises), or these funny gold coins that serve as some type of underworld currency almost like a real-life Bitcoin. Also the suits. Not since Neo and Trinity rescued Morpheus has Keanu Reeves looked so good while killing so many. I couldn’t help but notice, too, that many of the Russian mafia Keanu squared off against were actually wearing red shirts. Like the filmmakers knew exactly how disposable these guys were and went ahead and outfitted them accordingly.
The film isn’t perfect, and while some of the weaker elements were part and parcel to the well-trodden revenge-action subgenre, other elements were genuinely problematic. Palicki’s character feels unnecessary and adds precious minutes to the run time. There’s also probably one too many gunfights (something I thought I might never say in my life). Keanu’s never been a powerhouse actor, and up against Willem Dafoe or Michael Nyqvist, that is occasionally apparent. But the occasional flatly delivered line is more than forgiven as Keanu (clearly doing many of his own stunts, though not all) glides effortlessly across houses, clubs, and city streets, brandishing weapons that he’ll use for mass destruction, and then pointing them right into bad guys faces.
Cinema like John Wick offers me the greatest thrills I can experience in a movie theater. I love to be moved, challenged, or caused to question what I know and believe by cinema. But for pure entertainment value, there’s nothing more enjoyable that a wholly satisfying, hardcore action movie. Keanu, Stahelski & Leitch, writer Derek Kolstad, and the entire John Wick team have knocked it out of the park when gauged by pure entertainment value. I’d love to see Reeves continue collaborating with lesser known action talent, using his star power to bring what these folks have to offer to us willing masses, yearning to be thrilled.
And I’m Out.