Movie Review: John Wick
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
John Wick is a film about an ex-hitman who has recently been done wrong by some folks who are going to really regret doing so. Call it luck or karma but this is one hitman cannot get away from who he ultimately is. The film was directed by David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, both of whom have decades of experience in the film business as stuntmen. While it is not uncommon in major films to have the lead stunt-man run the second unit like an assistant director, this is the duo’s first attempt to reach the big leagues.
The film is set up primarily as a flashback. We open with a bloody John Wick (Keanu Reeves) stumbling out of a vehicle. He is clearly in dire straits, but he does not call out for help. Instead, he watches an old video clip on his smartphone of his wife – a day at the beach. An act that leads one to believe that Wick is on death’s door and that he wanted to see his wife just one more time prior to the end. Naturally, this is not the case and the flashback portion of the film begins as the bulk of the remaining screen time shows exactly how Wick ended up in the beat up shape we see at the open. This is initially told through a series of flashbacks within flashbacks as we see Wick with his wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan) – very much in love. We then see Wick on the way to visit her one last time in the hospital and then semi-linear time resumes and her funeral is shown. The only person who actually dares to speak to Wick at Helen’s funeral is Marcus (Willem DaFoe). Marcus offers his condolences and some sage advice about how screwed up life is; expecting otherwise is useless, he offers.
After the funeral, Wick receives a delivery at home. Helen sent him a puppy as a final farewell gift. After a day of acclimating to his canine companion, Wick runs into some creeps at a local gas station. Their leader is Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen) who unsuccessfully offers to buy Wick’s 1969 Mustang. Iosef does not handle the rejection of his offer well. Later, he and his two cronies break into Wick’s home; they beat Wick up and do far worse to his dog.
When Wick regains consciousness, he buries his dog and discovers the Mustang was stolen. Given his past, he knows just where to go to get a line on where the car might be and who stole it. Wick visits Aureilo (John Leguizamo) at his chop shop. There Wick learns the name of the man he needs to kill – Iosef. He also learns that karma is a bitch as Iosef is the son of a gangster, Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist). Things get much more complicated from here on as Wick’s body count starts.
Revenge films rarely end happily, few are even any good. For every Unforgiven (1992) there a hundred movies like, any Steven Seagal movie. These sorts of films are only successful when the action is spectacular, but not cartoonish, and the protagonist is believable. Note I said successful, I did not say good. Few revenge films are genuinely good or great films, critically speaking. That does not mean they cannot be commercially successful and/or worthy of some cult status (think The Replacement Killers [1998] or Payback [1999]; neither film won an Oscar or spawned a sequel, but I cannot turn them off whenever I happen to click into either one with my remote).
Keanu Reeves in “John Wick.” Photo by David Lee – © 2014 – Summit Entertainment.
In the case of John Wick, the work that Reeves does here meets the test. Mostly because the stunts are excellent and Wick gets progressively more beat up as the film goes on. Wick isn’t a Terminator. He just happens to be very good with a weapon and never saw a close-up headshot he didn’t like. I can say there are a couple of stunts in John Wick that I had not seen done in quite the way they were executed in this film.
The bad news is the film’s ending. The script, by Derek Kolstad, is paint by numbers for the most part. The editing and layout of the flashbacks are actually pretty good in in the beginning, but the predictable nature of this sort of film means we know where we are headed throughout – a showdown. Unfortunately, that climax is disappointing. The denouement is a horribly trite tag-on. The film could have been so much better if the ending were removed and literally any other resolution were utilized in its place.
So, while John Wick was only shooting for a “B” movie status, it still missed the mark. But it was very close to hitting it with lots of great action, plus some decent laughs. But that will only get you so far. You have to put together an ending that satisfies, or failing that, avoids punching the audience’s internal WTF button.
Steven Gahm
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