The pleasure of watching Keanu Reeves where he belongs, as a master assassin with an almost Zen like calm in the middle of knockout punches, assault rifles, expert killers and their ilk is almost overwhelming as it comes rushing back. It is almost as if at 50 years of age, Keanu just like John, is pulled back into the action where he belongs and has thrived. He looks lean, fit and dapper in the dark suits he wears in spite of the impossible action frames he is a part of. The cast that surround him are by themselves no strangers to the drama action genre – Michael Nyqvist, Kevin Bacon, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo and others lend visual flair and sharp company to Reeves.
The story behind all the action is not very uncommon – expert assassin retires for his wife’s sake; wife is stricken down and presents something in her memory to the husband. In this case it’s a beagle that’s the definition of cute and something ugly happens to it that brings back the ugliness in the assassin sending him on a last kill or be killed spree. What makes John Wick stand out apart from Keanu Reeves’ cold and athletic delivery of violence is the sleek and stylized mien of the entire movie. The movie will not work if the antagonists do not antagonize too much and boy, do they. Iosef (played by Alfie Allen) is the son of notorious Russian mobster Viggo (Michael Nyqvist). What he does made me want to squeeze the life out of his snotty self, indicating he’s played his part well. Michael Nyqvist threatens with his cold gray eyes and manages to convince us that his bare hands are practically all he needs to keep us cowering in our seats.
The helmers of this bloody revenge story – Chad Stahelski and David Leitch are no strangers to stunts, Stahelski in particular having served as stunt double to Keanu when he channeled Neo Anderson so effectively in ‘The Matrix’. Leitch apparently has body doubled for Brad Pitt in ‘The Fight Club’ and for Matt Damon in at least one of the Bourne movies. Their experience is evident in the fluid and shattering violence depicted on screen. There is almost no weird and juddery camera moves to convey action, rather the camera handled by Jonathan Sela presents each shot in neat and calculated precision without subjecting us to motion blur. The story is presented in a tightly edited (Elisabet Ronalds) package, almost as neat as Ian McShanes little cocktail club.
It would also be remiss not to mention the production values that take us to an entirely different dimension of New York city. People familiar with the graphic novel version of ‘Wanted’ would recognize the stylized dimension of a world of crime and assassins existing parallel to the here and now. Common law is not something that exists in their world and the differentiation is exact and displayed in sharp contrasts. A funeral is shot in such near sepia that it almost appears void of colour, a club that literally gyrates in red, a cocktail bar that’s all smooth green and a church that’s for reasons unknown is gray. Visually the movie easily scores top marks.
In spite of a repeated story line, there are almost no untied strings left for us to contemplate. John Wick may return, but would he?
Three and a half stars
