John Wick (2014)
Certified: 15
Duration: 101 minutes
Directed by: Chad Stahelski, David Leitch
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrienne Palicki, Michelle Monaghan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Willem Dafoe
KRS Releasing Ltd

John Wick has a deceptively simple plot which could be summed up in the old adage ‘let sleeping dogs lie’. With Keanu Reeves and his trademark glazed look at its core, the film delivers like a high-speed train. It is an actioner that is high on class and style and is not afraid to get its hand dirty. Most of all, for a movie of the genre, it comes out looking tough and strong.

Reeves plays the title character. At one time, he had worked as an assassin; in the criminal underworld, he was the man to go to carry out a hit. However, he has retired to focus on his wife, Helen (Bridget Moynahan), and his car, a 1969 Mustang. When his wife dies from a terminal illness, he is left alone, except for a puppy which was his wife’s final gift to him. One day, while at a petrol station, he meets Iosef (Alfie Allen) and trouble starts to brew. Iosef wants John’s car and asks to buy it. He refuses and that is when Iosef and his thugs enter John’s house, beat him up, kill the puppy and steal his car.

John seemingly enough comes alive and there is no stopping him. Iosef’s dad, Russian Mafia boss Viggo (Michael Nyqvist) tries to avert the events that have now been set in motion. He places a huge bounty on John that leads to such killers as Marcus (Willem Dafoe), who had once been John’s partner, and Ms Perkins (Adrianne Palicki), a deadly sexy freelancer, to try their best to kill John and avert the bloodbath.

John Wick is not a sign of today’s Hollywood times. Recently, action movies have the tendency to overstay their welcome as action sequences become longer and longer in length. John Wick is the opposite.

Developed and set on-screen as a lean and mean movie, the impact of this film is even more in your face. The direction knows that its story is strictly there to carry the audience with it. It capitalises on this by becoming physical, urgent and entertaining in a gutsy mode as it focuses on the revenge issue that the audience can easily relate with.

The action sequences show that directors Chad Stahleski and David Leitch, who had previously worked as stuntmen, know what to look for and present on screen.

Each sequence escalates on the previous one, with the intention being to increase the full brunt of the action involved. They also know how to inject the film with a sense of impending doom and urgency that carries the audience along. Reeves here repeats the kind of physical performance he had delivered in Speed and the Matrix movies.

The emphasis here is of never going overboard either on the computer-generated special effects, or in the over-the-top action. It presents a hero that is an unstoppable force but one that takes the bruises.

Well-executed choreography and beautiful cinematography make for a very good-looking movie, which perfectly exemplifies the benefits when a film’s direction focuses on the essentials.

Dafoe brings a sense of weary and tired veteran attitude, while Palicki is the obligatory sexy moll with guns for the fan boys to drool over. McShane brings his usual earthy and gravellytone that give his character a distinct flavour.

John Wick is a relentless and punchy film that knows what it wants and goes all out to get it.