“John Wick: Chapter 4” Review
Keanu Reeves comes back for one last fight as the legendary “Baba Yaga,” John Wick in “John Wick: Chapter 4.”
When it seems like every other action film is a superhero film or a pre-existing IP starring Tom Cruise, it’s refreshing when something quite original is injected into the mainstream and becomes a popular franchise. “John Wick” is that franchise. After wowing audiences back in 2014, each subsequent sequel has gotten bigger and bolder with its fourth installment having been released this past weekend. “John Wick: Chapter 4” is by far the best sequel starring the vengeful assassin and is the best action film that I’ve seen in theaters since Tom Cruise hit Mach 10 in “Top Gun: Maverick.”
After being betrayed by those he trusted and having a multimillion dollar bounty placed on his head, legendary assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has sworn revenge against the powerful High Table which controls everything involving the secret society he was once a part of. When a powerful leader of the High Table, the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård), begins to target the few friends John has left, John seeks to end it all by challenging the Marquis directly. Either way, John Wick will get freedom whether it be in having the bounty on his head removed or through his own death.
At this point, most people know what they’re going to get with a John Wick film. It’s going to be a high-stakes, action-fueled masterpiece with a combination of gunplay, spaghetti westerns, car chases, knife fights and martial arts as the titular killer just wants to retire. But all of these pricks just won’t let him. So, they need to die in ways that would be described as overkill if we were being rational. However, what makes each film in the series unique is how they continue to evolve and deepen the mythos of this world. We’ve gone from an assassin seeking revenge for a murdered puppy to a multi-continental journey of death and destruction and it’s all been cohesive.
Seeing how this world works and the stakes of everyone in it make for an atmosphere as compelling as the journey of the film’s protagonist. Currently, a limited series and a spin-off film are in progress to further explore this world of assassins and I am all for it. It’s not often that you see a contemporary action series have a lore on par with great fantasy dramas. But this is still John Wick’s film and Keanu Reeves, once again, gets across so much despite his minimal dialogue. He’s a man of throat-slitting, gun-toting action who captures so much of what makes a good action hero. This isn’t someone who fears nothing, this is someone who just takes a lot of damage for survival. After each action sequence, I was just amazed at how anyone, especially John Wick, was still standing after ten minutes of punching, stabbing and shooting.
With a large arsenal of tricks, tools and stunts, “John Wick: Chapter 4” has some of the most spectacular action you can see in the cinema.
Speaking of which, the film’s action is one of the best spectacles I’ve seen in recent months. After co-directing the first “John Wick” with David Leitch (“Atomic Blonde,” “Deadpool 2,” “Hobbs and Shaw” and “Bullet Train”), Chad Stahelski has helmed every film in the franchise and the fight sequences have gotten better and better. I don’t even know how that’s possible given how well he coordinated them in the first film. But here we are.
As a stuntman himself, Stahelski clearly has such a reverence for the power of action cinema and contempt for the lazy tricks that studios use to pass off swill as entertainment. There’s no quick-cutting bullshit, no unnecessary CGI and no shaky cameras. Everything you see is really happening in frame with sweeping camera movements. Of course, it helps that everyone in this film is an action badass. Yes, we know that John Wick is essentially immortal but many of his foes give him a run for his money.
So many incredibly talented martial artists are in “John Wick: Chapter 4” and they all left my jaw on the floor with their speed, their precision and their ability to contort their bodies for spectacular violence. Hiroyuki Sanada is fantastic as Shimazu Koji, an old friend of John Wick’s who is a central part of one of the film’s most spectacular battles in Osaka, and Scott Adkins is delightfully sickening as Killa Harkan, a German adversary of Wick’s.
I was also quite taken with Shamier Anderson’s performance as Mr. Nobody, a man who wants to kill John Wick but don’t do so until the price is just right. So, he’s both a potential protector and enemy. You have no idea what side he’s on except his own which makes for an intriguing character.
But the real stand-out of this film’s new players is Caine (Donnie Yen) a blind assassin whose retirement is interrupted by the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, who blackmails Caine into taking up the bounty on Wick. Donnie Yen is well-known as a god of cinematic martial arts and the way he fights in this film could give Daredevil and Yen’s character from “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” a run for their money. The way he’s able to cut down three men in a handful of seconds was incredible and his speed seems unreal. How can he move that fast?
Donnie Yen’s portrayal of Caine is one of the most engaging performances in the film. Just sit in awe at how fast he moves.
Whenever Caine and Wick are on screen together, I got the chills especially in a climatic sequence on a long trek of Paris stairs. Their chemistry is matched only by their brutality. Speaking of brutality, the film’s best action scene, and proof that stunts need to be recognized by the Academy already, involves a massive fight around the Arc de Triomphe with cars going in all sorts of directions while Wick is fighting a small army of mercenaries and cutthroats. Along with returning giants like Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne and the late Lance Reddick, this film is so much more than its main character.
This is the kind of cinema that deserves to be seen on a big screen and it’s epic in every sense of the word. While all the films in the series have had stellar action sequences, they’ve gotten more elaborate with each installment to the point that they’re the gold standard for how to choreograph and film fighting. While I love every film in this series, the second and third chapters of the “John Wick” saga left us on cliffhangers. Don’t get me wrong, they were good endings but “John Wick: Chapter 4” is a franchise film that doesn’t spend half its time setting up spin-offs or sequels. It’s self-contained conclusion to this series that is cinematic in the most spectacular way.
