John Wick

Recommendation

I strongly recommend John Wick if you are looking for a raw action movie. Keanu Reeves trained for this movie and it really shows. It was directed by Chad Stahelski who has a background in kickboxing and as a stunt man. That combination results in a movie that feels real and brutal. It is wall-to-wall action with just enough backstory for the protagonist that we understand what fuels his rage.

The reason this gets such a high rating from me is that it is such a pure synthesis of its genre. It is an action thriller and doesn’t waste a breath on anything superfluous. It describes an interesting world filled with unique characters, but at the end of the day it has a sharp, focused plot, and it makes good on all of its promises of violence and revenge.

I would not recommend this if you’re not good with intense violence. John Wick definitely deserves its R rating.

Thoughts

(spoilers ahead)

Setting the Stage

I went into this movie blind the first time I saw it and I definitely felt like that was the correct decision. There is no easier path to getting me on board for a violent revenge plot like killing a puppy. From that moment on, I was right there with John as he plots out his revenge.

I think the way the plot is revealed is very clever. Before he is robbed, we don’t have any indication that John is as highly trained and feared as he proves to be. The movie does have a cold open where a busted up SUV crashes into a concrete wall, but that doesn’t do much to raise our expectations. As soon as Iosef tries to dump John Wick’s stolen car, the pieces start slotting into place. The next scene where the mob boss describes how vicious and determined John Wick is going to be hits so much harder than if they had shown a montage of his past as exposition.

Normally they say, “show don’t tell”, but I think an exception can be made when you, “tell and then show”, which is something John Wick does perfectly. The mob boss describes how savage and methodical the coming violence is going to be, which sets our expectations as the audience very high for the coming action. It’s a risky strategy, but the rest of the movie is able to live up to those expectations and retroactively justify the scene that sets them up.

The World Building

The world building that happens in this film is also excellent. The way John disposes of the bodies in his home sparks the mystery around the golden coins. The hotel deepens the mystery and shows us glimpses of a secret underworld that John used to be a part of. These are pieces of the background that make the story feel more rich and interesting. I appreciate that this movie presents these elements of the world without overly analyzing and explaining them.

In the sequels, these background elements are examined and I feel it takes away from some of the fun and mystery of the original movie. When these pieces exist in the background it gives your imagination somewhere to drift off and explore. When the sequels begin to explain exactly what the rules are, it transforms those fun elements into trivia.