Get Wicked Off…

In all honesty, it’s been a while since Keanu Reeves has really stared in a full-frontal film. Sure, you do have films like 47 Ronin and the Man of Tai Chi that he’s stared in, but let’s be honest, they’re not really films that to me anyway, really appealed despite them being visually appealing. In the case of John Wick, you most certainly see the old Keanu; very bold and dark whilst having this stoic aurora which all play a great part in his grieving and aggressive character who can ‘get the job done’ if I can put it that way with his stunts and fatalities that he performs. While the film allows Reeves to rekindle his older self; channelling his inner-Neo from The Matrix into John Wick and stylistically appeals with it’s chosen shot’s and colour gradient and put’s together the fighting choreography poetically hinting at Woo’s ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ films of the late 80’s and 90’s, the narrative inconsistencies do really hold this film back from being a really good action film.

So the story of John Wick which is very straightforward, centres around a retired hit-man named John Wick (Keanu Reeves) who is grieving over the loss of his wife that passed away from an illness. Out of the blue, John receives a special delivery at home coming from his deceased wife, a cut dog that becomes his pride and joy. While life for John now after burying his wife seems to moving forward peacefully, all that swiftly goes into fire and shadow as a couple of men, who John had previously met and enquired about buying his car, break into his home, beat him up and kill his dog. When he recovers now looking for revenge, John learns that the one of the people behind the home invasion and the killing of his Dog was the Russian Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen), the son of John’s former employer. Now having his own personal vendetta, John who has now lost everything, seeks revenge on those who took his life away.

Having that this film doesn’t have a massive amount of problems, I think it’s only right if we address one of the major faults that this film has which is the narrative and what inconsistencies it has within it’s own structure. In terms of it’s opening 30 minutes of the character John grieving over his dead wife, it isn’t your ordinary action/crime/revenge flick. Take something like Taken for instance, that’s a story that for me more has an honour attribute more than a flavour of revenge since we see a dangerous father protect his daughter. With John Wick it’s very stream lined and very straight forward with it’s story of the main protagonist going after these Russian mobsters over his dead dog which I can understand does sound absurd and can be laughable thinking about it like this. The opening 30 minutes as well contributes to this idea that John Wick is a different action/revenge production due to the fact that it’s very monotone and sweet with seeing John having to cope with a dear lossed one whilst also receiving a gift of fulfilment. If there is one thing that I have noticed with Keanu Reeves as an actor in which he succeeds at doing is showing grief and being en-battled and hunker down against the world in which he performs in. If you go into this film expecting a full-frontal action film, you will be surprised due to the fact that it does take it’s time to set the story up, and it allows you to get full connected with Reeves’s character so that when the film progresses and something bad is happening to him, as an audience member, your’re almost obliged to let him to go back to the assassin life. In terms of it’s story, one of the things that John Wick reminded me of straight away was the story arc of Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop. Like John, Spike is a character that once tried to get away from his dark past by finding love, but evidently get’s pulled back in by old associates. Going into more detail, this idea of of the character delving back into his grim past most certainly applies to the ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ story elements which Cowboy Bebop was inspired by. Having originated in Hong Kong cinema in the late 80’s/ early 90’s, ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ films in terms of their main character and stories, revolve around good-willed yard birds who are lead to be betrayed by their employer and seek out the truth through violence and revenge. There’s no real arguing that in terms of the narrative, John Wick is a perfect example of a film that has been inspired by the classic Hong Kong crime films like John Woo did with The Killer with how they apply a strong emotional angle through the main characters personal vendetta. 

Despite John Wick setting up it’s story really well in terms of us as the audience attaching to John emotionally, it can’t be helped to mention some of the inaccuracies. Now within the film, Wick is a character that sought of really has a mythos about him; he’s a character that is sometimes referred to as the guy who takes down the ‘Boogeyman’. Yet, all of this ego building is a farce; on one occasion he’s referred to as a ghost-man who can kill three men armed with only a pencil, but somehow manages not to anticipate a couple of brainless thugs break into his home, beat the living hell out of him, kill his dog and steal his Mustang. Another odd-ball is the fact that again, Wick is considered to be so famous that even the policeman, the bartenders and the Mafia know all about him, but SOMEHOW!, the son of the Mafia boss Iosef for some reason doesn’t even know who he is?! What I am trying to get across here is the actual building of Wick’s character, there really isn’t any need for these statements about Wick which are not true. The opening 30 minutes all ready builds up this assumption about Wick; so for me these statements that random characters say about Wick is unnecessary and does hinder the film very slightly.

Even though I am being a little knit-pick about some of the narrative points which I think I was right in in-forming you, this is a successful film and one of the reasons why this film makes to be a action film that you can re-watch and admire is the Direction of Chad Stahleski and David Leitch’s choice of stylization through the cinematography, the colour-gradient and the choreography. Firstly what is apparent and the one of the aspects that I love about this film is actually the overall New York setting and how Stahelski and Leitch insist on using a green gradient filter throughout. Obviously, the green filter is a mechanical tool that essentially portrays Wick’s world to be gritty and grimy which is absolutely fine. However, what I like even more though is how it contributes to this idea that you can view this film, in a weird way as a graphic novel. The way in which John interacts with the other characters and how he ‘connects’ with the surroundings does feel like as though I’m watching a comic-book strip come to life. The other arbitrary film elements like the hotel that John stays at and how the assassins in this world use golden coins to trade items if you will again adds to this idea of this film being linked with a graphic novel tone. What is annoying that I shouldn’t really be mentioning is how a lot of criticism has been placed on John Wick for it’s lack of ‘realism’. Well I can tell you that the whole purpose of this film is that it’s not supposed to be ‘realistic’; in fact, it’s a piece of art that relishes in stylish escapism as shown in the beautiful and poetic action choreography sequences. Every-single action sequence that you’ll watch within this film is fast-paced, beautifully shot, fluid, intense and you’ll honestly never have trouble understanding what’s going on. As mentioned before, one of the cinematic styles that John Wick embodies is the ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ concept that revolve around a violent anti-heroes that resolve a problem through revenge and although that is shown conclusively in the visually appealing action scenes, what I like about watching Wick going after these guys is how funnily enough, it’s like watching a ballet. The overall package of these action scenes are constructed in an elegant yet ‘right’ fashion that really, some main stream action films like ‘Fast and Furious’ or ‘Expendables’ don’t even have which knock knock to all film knuckle heads, shows where the real quality lies in. The camera I think as well helps to display these action sequences as a dance; it’s very a much a ‘Haywain’ painting which you can see every-little detail and is taken in one long take, yet instead of looking at a beautiful scenery, your looking at a well executed battle that now, a lot of action directors and film-makers will look at for inspiration.

As far as the performances go in this film, Reeves who plays the main role just steals the show overall. While Keanu sold the action pieces well, he wasn’t asked to do much to stretch his stoic emotional range, which is just what the film required. It’s like I said in the intro, With Reeves, straight away you know what you’re going to get, a bold performance that can be appealing. I really don’t know how else to put it, but he does have this aurora about him that makes him so noticeable despite the fact that he doesn’t show much emotion at all. I do think that Keanu despite the fact that he’s not really been in the ‘loop’ and is getting on a bit at age 50, he can make a return to film with some stellar performances to come. I never like to pre-predict but Reeves could potentially do well in his next up-coming film Knock Knock which looks interesting enough… I guess. Apart from Reeves, there really isn’t much to say; Willem Dafoe makes a couple of appearances who you don’t really get to know to much other than he’s a ‘friend’ of Wick’s and Alfie Allen who you may know from Game of Thrones does an alright job of playing the mobsters son but to me his character his just non-nonsensical; his only purpose in to en-light the story of the film to greater and intense needs.

Regardless, John Wick is all about the action and it goes above and beyond in every respect. It’s a breath of fresh air after all the poor sequels we’ve been getting, and thankfully John Wick has the potential to be the next great action franchise. An absolute must-watch for action fans. As always everyone, thank you for reading my latest review of John Wick. If you liked my review, be sure to check out my other previous reviews that I have done on this Blog. As I have now finished University for 2nd year, I will most definitely be posting at least one review each week for a long while so be sure to keep going to the site as regularly as you can. I do have a lot of reviews stacked and ready to be typed up so I really can’t wait to share those reviews with you guys. Thanks again and I’ll see soon 🙂

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ – Alex Rabbitte