John Wick

For an action thriller, John Wick has an ingeniously simple premise.  It's titular character isn't fighting for the right or to save the world, he just wants revenge.  That's nothing new in an action movie, but that's not what impressed me.  In a movie like this, you'd expect him to seek revenge for the death of a woman he loved or a child.  What sends John Wick on a 90 minute raid of bullets and murder is something much simpler - He's pissed off because some lowly thugs stole his car and murdered his dog.

It's okay to laugh.  I did the first time I heard the premise.  And yet, the more I think about it, what else is a highly trained assassin like John Wick going to value more in his life than his prized car and faithful companion?  I've heard of men killing for lesser reasons.  The car is easy to understand.  Without it, he becomes the first action hero who's ever had to rely on public transportation to get to shootouts until he can get a new set of wheels.  That has to be embarrassing.  As for the dog, we learn early on that it was a gift from the woman he loved.  Until he met this girl, John Wick was a hired assassin, and a highly skilled one at that.  The kind who is still feared in the criminal underworld even though he's been retired for years.  John retired because of that woman he loved, who grew ill and eventually succumbed to the disease.  As he found himself slowly sinking into depression after her passing, the dog arrived on his doorstep - a final gift that his love arranged before she died.  The little dog represents the last light of hope in the man's wife, and when it is murdered by some thugs who want to steal his car, he loses that hope.

Keanu Reeves plays John Wick, and it's a strong performance of slow-burn anger and rage.  When the three thugs break into his house to steal his car, he doesn't seem to know how to react.  It's not confusion, it's more of a rage blinding every sense within him.  When the leader of the thugs, the spoiled and stupid adult son of a Russian mafia crime boss, kills his dog as well as steal the car, it sends him spiraling into an uncontrollable fury.  When the crime boss finds out that his son has pissed off one of the best assassins in the world, he tries to work out a deal with John, but quickly realizes that the man is too filled with rage to listen.  So, he sends a bunch of his own men to John's house to kill him, leading to the first of many impressive staged action sequences.  The fight scenes are beautifully choreographed, and staged in such a way that we get to savor the details with no rapid fire editing covering up the details.  Not only does this scene demonstrate the expertise of the fight scenes, but it also displays a wicked sense of black humor when the fight is over, and a police officer stops by to investigate because of a noise complaint.

It's not surprising that the fight scenes in John Wick are spectacular when you learn that the film's directors, David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, are veteran stuntmen making their filmmaking debut.  In fact, Mr. Stahelski was Keanu Reeves' stunt double in The Matrix films.  For their first time behind the camera, they show a great skill in keeping a relentless sense of momentum.  The opening 15 minutes or so are devoted to setting up John's quest for revenge, and the remainder of the film is an almost non-stop chase to track down the criminals responsible.  There are a lot of impressive shoot outs and fights, quite a few one-liners, and an overall sense that this is the best example of a "shoot first, think later" 80s-style action thriller in quite some time.  It's certainly leagues better than anything Sylvester Stallone has been able to dream up with his star-studded Expendables series. 

The key here is simplicity.  The premise could be written out on the face of a napkin, but it works because of the constant momentum that the film is able to keep up.  The movie also doesn't draw attention to itself, or making winking nods to old action movies.  It simply offers one excellently staged action sequence after another, with a streak of humor that is genuinely funny.  The movie also has some strong cameos by recognizable actors as John is reunited with some of his former associates and enemies as he gets back into the "killing business".  These include Willem Dafoe, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, and Adrianne Palicki.  Fortunately, these cameos never get in the way of the action, or distract from our enjoyment.  This is a very focused movie that knows how to use its actors.

For anyone looking for a simple revenge-driven action film, John Wick just may be the best example of the genre to come along in a while.  It's fast, it's thrilling, and it gives the viewer a giddy high that only a well-executed action movie can.  I don't think there's enough here for a sequel or a series of films, but as a stand-alone thriller, it's pretty much everything that last month's The Equalizer tried and failed to be.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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