Director: Chad Stahelski
Writers: Shay Hatten and Michael Finch
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Ian McShane
Synopsis: John Wick uncovers a path to defeating The High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.
Despite having numerous sequences that lean toward a parody of itself, the latest installment in the Keanu Reeves-led guns and blades franchise, John Wick: Chapter 4, is an action-packed, bloody good time that, even though it has gotten bigger in terms of budget and runtime, never abandons its straight-to-DVD conventions. Chad Stahelski’s excellent grasp on the genre makes this beat-em-up picture pave the way for a new, distinctively captivating future for action filmmakers. It is a different beast.
American stunt coordinator-turned-filmmaker Chad Stahelski and his beloved creation, the John Wick franchise, have changed the action genre for good. Every genre filmmaker that wants to make an action film founded on revenge-thriller roots copies what Stahelski and his team have done since 2014, until now. In recent years, we have gotten the likes of Nobody, Gunpowder Milkshake (great title, boring movie), Kate, Jolt, amongst others that have yet to capture the brilliance of the John Wick franchise. Those films didn’t have a director at the helm with a great grasp on the genre – a person who understands the physicality and brutality of showcasing pain through kicks and punches to the audience. And Chad Stahelski does it again and again. His brilliant self always finds creative ways to combine elements from the past (Bruce Lee pictures, Lady Snowblood, Police Story) with a new stylistic flair for modern viewers. With each new installment, the Keanu Reeves-led franchise gets more extensive and, rather unusually, better. And John Wick: Chapter 4 proves that the adrenaline-fueled beat-em-up isn’t running out of steam.
Picking up almost immediately after events that transpired during Parabellum, John Wick: Chapter 4 begins with a trip to the desert. John Wick (the man himself, Keanu Reeves), who has taken refuge with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), travels to the desert to visit his “old friend” The Elder (formerly played by Said Taghmaoui, now George Georgiou) – asking for an escape, one last time. But, of course, we all know that what Wick seeks isn’t going to be given to him. The Elder says death is the only way out of his life as an on-call mercenary or rebel with a cause. So, as the bounty on his head rises with each passing day, John Wick sets out to find a way to eradicate the contract attached to his violence-riddled soul and finally get the nefarious High Table off his back. However, a new member of such an organization in power has been given plenty of toys to play with, the Marquis de Gramont (played by an entertainingly tart and scenery-chewing Bill Skarsgård).
What the Marquis de Gramont wants, in essence, is to end the idea of a black-suited boogeyman – a person who can defy the rules and decrees of the mighty institution that everyone in the movie bows their heads to – by killing Mr. Wick. And he knows it won’t be an easy job. Given carte blanche, with all of the resources imaginable at his disposal, and his desire for control, he hires two new faces into the franchise to hunt Baba Yaga down: Caine (Donnie Yen) and a track later named Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson). They all go from Osaka to Paris in a globetrotting exposition of murderous rampages and violent ballets in search of the titular character. With an almost three-hour runtime, which flies by quickly, and an arrangement of luscious scenarios in its respective window-dressing locations, John Wick: Chapter 4 has Chad Stahelski managing to breathe new life into the franchise – when we all thought it was going nowhere after the third installment – by not only crafting a unique experience while also implementing elements from cinema’s past to curate this brutal, action-packed epic.
When I first saw the trailer of John Wick: Chapter 4, I was skeptical because it seemed as if the franchise would dismiss what I found intriguing in the first part, its B-movie/straight-to-DVD action-thriller premise and sensibilities. I compared the first two installments in this franchise to Jason Statham’s series of Transporter and Cranked movies. Of course, John Wick leaned more toward a revenge story, but I found them similar in terms of their action and popcorn entertainment. After watching the fourth chapter, I can say that although it is a more robust picture, Chad Stahelski doesn’t lose touch with its B-movie origins. Stahelski has an extensive knowledge of cinema, as he references plenty of films that have inspired him these past couple of years. There are quick references to David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, Walter Hill’s The Warriors, the Bruce Lee-led Enter the Dragon, and Kill Bill (and, coincidentally, Lady Snowblood) scattered throughout the film, and some of them are easy to miss. The most prominent and beneficial one is Zatoichi, The Blind Swordsman, with Donnie Yen’s character, Caine.
The stunt coordinator turned filmmaker and cinematographer Dan Laustsen has also found ways to make lengthy fight scenes and shootouts that do not seem repetitive by switching up the camera maneuvers in every set piece, both in sets built and on location. It feels like kitchen-sink filmmaking due to the various amounts of different cinematic techniques the crew is implementing. Yet, it all comes together thrillingly. Most of us will have different favorite scenes, despite our keenness to lean toward the grand ones, but the apartment sequence in Paris during the last act indeed left me impressed and wanting more of those types of shots. One negative thing that arrives with this maximalist approach is conjuring scenes that feel caricature-esque as if it is becoming a parody of itself. It doesn’t get to a Fast & Furious level of ridiculousness, although some scenes make you think that John Wick is a meta-human or has an adamantine spine. “Are you dead, John?”, one character quotes, and everybody in the audience laughs because you are baffled by his potential injuries and highly entertained by everything the film throws at you.
While I still enjoy the second installment the most, in my opinion, being the best one in the bunch, John Wick: Chapter 4 showcases that neither Keanu nor Stahelski is running out of ideas to implement in the franchise. Many will try to copy what the two of them have done in the past couple of years, but they won’t come close; the scope and visualization of these “back to the basics while still adding a modern spin on them” lengthy action set-pieces that the film crew come up with beat out most of the “spectacle” released today. When you think it is running out of ideas, the film comes back with more blood and bullets raining down the scenery like a genre-piece parade. There are fire-bursting shotguns, bulletproof suits, Frogger-like car chases in the Arc the Triomphe, and Keanu Reeves falling from multiple flights of stairs. If this doesn’t cement John Wick: Chapter 4 as pure hyper-stylized fun, I don’t know what will.
Sure, a couple of issues in its script and narrative damage the film’s backbone a bit. There are a couple of silly lines, although the actors mostly sell them with their sumptuous presence and scenery-chewing line delivery. In addition, I needed more of Rina Sawayama, who is promising as an action star. But, in the end, the dangerous duo of Stahelski and Reeves keeps delivering one hit after the other the only way they know how. And that’s with guns blazing, blades sharpened, and black suits ironed. It’s ambitious to create an action extravaganza in this varied form because there is the chance of losing what made everyone a fan. Regardless, John Wick: Chapter 4 is effective in every aspect, even when it demonstrates its faults at a full glance. This hit goes out to you, Mr. Wick!
