John Wick (15.)
Directed by Chad Stahelski.
Starring Keanu Reeves. Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Defoe, Adrianne Palicki, Dean Winters and Ian McShane. 101 mins.
Keanu Reeves is back. Technically he hasn't been away, he's just been lounging in his fortress of obscurity, a semi self imposed cloak of invisibility made up of small films and blockbuster fiascos (47 Ronin.) The easiest way to get back into audiences' affections is to kill a bunch of people so Reeve's character, John Wick, is a super efficient hitman who got out of the game to live a decent life but is drawn back in after personal tragedy. Everywhere he goes people tell him how great he is and how happy they are that he has returned. A statement is being made: Keanu is done with all that proper acting and has rededicated himself to doing what he is good at: being a movie star. They could have just called it “Keanu!”
Is it good to have him back, dressed in sleek dark suits and performing the type of slaughterhouse duties usually handed out to much bulkier, much balder types? Hell, yeah. Though he's not really the hitman type – his skill set is best suited to playing humble, earnest heroes – he pulls it off because there is a grace and assurance to the way he moves across the screen. Most movie stars expend a lot of energy puffing out their chest and trying to assure audiences that they belong up there on the big screen. Reeves seems ambivalent about it all and has a take or leave it approach, he appears totally comfortable up there. (Of course, when he's trying to stretch himself, doing his proper acting, all that assurance drops away, replaced with a desperation to succeed.)
That said, isn’t Keanu a bit young to be starring in a revenge thriller? The tired and old revenge thriller has been the preserve of Liam Neeson the granddad generation in recent years. Fortunately John Wick is a much lither beast than the lumbering Takens.
Revenge thrillers are dull, meathead concepts but that doesn't mean they can't be done without a little flair. The first thing John Wick gets right is the thing these films are most likely to get horribly wrong – the motivation for the revenge. Instead of having his wife/ daughter/ parents/ family getting killed/ raped/ kidnapped or some other atrocity that takes all the fun out of it, all that happens to Wick is that they kill his dog and steal his car. Now, I'm sad about the dog dying, but as motivation for a lightweight entertainment I can live with it; it is so much more bearable than sexual violence or traumatized children.
(The perpetrator is the son of a Russian mob boss. Hollywood is really embracing the opportunity to make the Ruskies the baddies again, though they have trouble getting any of them to join in. The mob boss and his son are played by Norwegian Nyqvist and Englishman Alfie Allen respectively – No Actual Russians Were Harmed In The Making of This Film.)
Director Stahelski and producer pal David Leitch are two former stuntmen and bring two decades of experience to the fight scenes, plus a lot of time studying the action in Asian films. They aren't in the Gareth Evans league, but the various punch and shoot ups are probably the most elegantly choreographed and emotionally satisfying since The Raid 2. There's nothing exactly new here – when a group of twelve assailants move in to take out Wick they still observe action movie decorum by forming an orderly to queue to receive their beating rather than pouring in all at once and making their man advantage count. And it seems to be made up from bits of other films. There is even a version of the “Guns, lots of guns” scene from The Matrix.
The script, without pushing the point, is a deadpan parody of crime movie tropes. It isn't set in a fantasy world exactly, but maybe one a step or two removed from this one, a world where criminals operate in their own self contained little world, almost entirely separate from the innocent bystander world. They even have their own hotel, proprietor I. McShane, where they rest up from their killing.
John Wick (15.)
Directed by Chad Stahelski.
Starring Keanu Reeves. Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Defoe, Adrianne Palicki, Dean Winters and Ian McShane. 101 mins.
Keanu Reeves is back. Technically he hasn't been away, he's just been lounging in his fortress of obscurity, a semi self imposed cloak of invisibility made up of small films and blockbuster fiascos (47 Ronin.) The easiest way to get back into audiences' affections is to kill a bunch of people so Reeve's character, John Wick, is a super efficient hitman who got out of the game to live a decent life but is drawn back in after personal tragedy. Everywhere he goes people tell him how great he is and how happy they are that he has returned. A statement is being made: Keanu is done with all that proper acting and has rededicated himself to doing what he is good at: being a movie star. They could have just called it “Keanu!”
Is it good to have him back, dressed in sleek dark suits and performing the type of slaughterhouse duties usually handed out to much bulkier, much balder types? Hell, yeah. Though he's not really the hitman type – his skill set is best suited to playing humble, earnest heroes – he pulls it off because there is a grace and assurance to the way he moves across the screen. Most movie stars expend a lot of energy puffing out their chest and trying to assure audiences that they belong up there on the big screen. Reeves seems ambivalent about it all and has a take or leave it approach, he appears totally comfortable up there. (Of course, when he's trying to stretch himself, doing his proper acting, all that assurance drops away, replaced with a desperation to succeed.)
That said, isn’t Keanu a bit young to be starring in a revenge thriller? The tired and old revenge thriller has been the preserve of Liam Neeson the granddad generation in recent years. Fortunately John Wick is a much lither beast than the lumbering Takens.
Revenge thrillers are dull, meathead concepts but that doesn't mean they can't be done without a little flair. The first thing John Wick gets right is the thing these films are most likely to get horribly wrong – the motivation for the revenge. Instead of having his wife/ daughter/ parents/ family getting killed/ raped/ kidnapped or some other atrocity that takes all the fun out of it, all that happens to Wick is that they kill his dog and steal his car. Now, I'm sad about the dog dying, but as motivation for a lightweight entertainment I can live with it; it is so much more bearable than sexual violence or traumatized children.
(The perpetrator is the son of a Russian mob boss. Hollywood is really embracing the opportunity to make the Ruskies the baddies again, though they have trouble getting any of them to join in. The mob boss and his son are played by Norwegian Nyqvist and Englishman Alfie Allen respectively – No Actual Russians Were Harmed In The Making of This Film.)
Director Stahelski and producer pal David Leitch are two former stuntmen and bring two decades of experience to the fight scenes, plus a lot of time studying the action in Asian films. They aren't in the Gareth Evans league, but the various punch and shoot ups are probably the most elegantly choreographed and emotionally satisfying since The Raid 2. There's nothing exactly new here – when a group of twelve assailants move in to take out Wick they still observe action movie decorum by forming an orderly to queue to receive their beating rather than pouring in all at once and making their man advantage count. And it seems to be made up from bits of other films. There is even a version of the “Guns, lots of guns” scene from The Matrix.
The script, without pushing the point, is a deadpan parody of crime movie tropes. It isn't set in a fantasy world exactly, but maybe one a step or two removed from this one, a world where criminals operate in their own self contained little world, almost entirely separate from the innocent bystander world. They even have their own hotel, proprietor I. McShane, where they rest up from their killing.
