John Wick (Chad Stahelski)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb / Wiki / Letterboxd

[TGM]

Really looking forward to this one out of nowhere.

[Henry Gale]

Really fun, maybe equally dumb, but luckily not generic enough to make it unremarkable.

The action is the biggest and best thing it has going for it, since it just oozes the right sort of propulsion and some jaw dropping, laugh-out-loud (mainly from sheer shock and awe) moments. There's also the less present unexpectedly goofy streak that still weirdly fits its otherwise very self-serious protagonist and overall feel. The initial moment of the bad guy being informed of the inciting incident that sets off the rest of the movie is just a beautifully played bit of humour by Nyqvist (completely making up for every moment missed out by his mostly-deleted villain in Ghost Protocol). The whole theatre erupted there, and I think that was the moment I knew I was pretty on-board with whatever it had in store next.

The Red Circle scene right in the middle is probably the overall highlight and the peak of the action's impact, proving once again that apparently any time an action writer / director chooses to set a massive showdown in a nightclub, it tends to be effortlessly arresting, but there enough other scenes that come close to equaling it along the way.

If you're going to go out for a no-frills, nostalgic actioner, Adam Wingard's The Guest is absolutely the more artistically, viscerally satisfying and forward thinking piece of "Insanely physically-skilled killing-machine wreaks havoc in glorious ways" cinema currently being theatrically exhibited. And maybe that's not exactly fair since The Guest is easily one of my favourite movies of the year, and Wick isn't even my favourite thing I've seen in the last two days -- That victory goes to Ghibli & Takahata's gooooorgeous Tale of the Princess Kaguya -- but together both of them would elevate each other to becoming even more awesome as two halves of a double feature, all the way down to them both featuring Lance Reddick in key supporting roles (and here, also Clarke Peters(!), coming oh-so-close to but not quite crossing paths with Reddick). Wick might have the more uniquely kinetic action, but Wingard's film has just about everything else going for it. So I'd say definitely see that instead if you get the chance, but settling for this will still find its ways of making for a worthy time to the theatre.

People will often annoyingly sling the word "pretentious" at a movie that they likely aren't giving enough credit to for simply having out-of-the-box ideas and unusual ambitions, kinda sullying it as a word which I don't like using in any form of review, but John Wick might succeed simply because it could very well be one of the least pretentious movie I've seen in while, and within those boundaries, it knows exactly what it wants to do, and whaddya know, it manages to do it all just solidly enough, even if it never really grabs ahold of a great story or finds an ending that lives up to the energetic highs of the rest.

*** / 6.8

[Pop Trash]

This is getting surprisingly decent reviews.

[Watashi]

I would say it's getting better than "decent" reviews.

[Henry Gale]

The Tomato-meter is remarkably at 92%, but the actual average rating of its Top Critics is at 6.4/10, and its Metacritic score is more suitably in the high 60's right now, and to me that's a much more well-adjusted expectation to go in with.

But individual opinions should always be the way to gauge, so I definitely know where I sit on it to contrast. (The better end of the middle.) To me, it's an efficiently made late-night movie that employs a lot of well-worn conventions with more punch than usual. It's not an instant classic of the genre or anything.

[Skitch]

I would say it's getting better than "decent" reviews.

You're not Pop Trash. His scale is 99% of films are god-awful atrocious monstrosities and 1% are masterpieces.

[Pop Trash]

You're not Pop Trash. His scale is 99% of films are god-awful atrocious monstrosities and 1% are masterpieces.

Naaaaaa. I'm not one of those people. The only horrendous 2014 release I've seen so far is The Fault in Our Stars and even that doesn't count because I shut it off after 15 minutes.

[megladon8]

This was great.

Right when it ended Jen turned to me and said "my favourite part was when he shot that guy in the head!"

[megladon8]

So yeah this was pretty badass, and Reeves plays a very likeable action hero as always.

Just brilliant action. The choreography (LOVED the amount of grappling and holds), filming and editing is sublime.

In the very first action scene, the siege on his house, there's an incredibly simple yet effective shot, one take, where Wick and a goon wrestle over a knife. They start at one end of a hallway, with the camer looking at them head-on as it simply moves closer to them ever so slowly as they fight, culminating in an extreme close up. It was amazing.

A stripped-bare crime action, with self-aware levity and great performances all around.

[Morris Schæffer]

Dang. I'm even more pumped for this than Interstellar. Incroyable!!

[megladon8]

Really want to read 8's thoughts in this one!

[number8]

Really want to read 8's thoughts in this one!

Never!

[Skitch]

Never!

I'm gonna assume it's your selection for Best Picture then.

[Morris Schæffer]

I'm gonna assume it's your selection for Best Picture then.

Assumption is the mother of all fuckups!

[Skitch]

Assumption is the mother of all fuckups!

Mother, brother, any other sucker!

[megladon8]

Still, I was dissapointed to discover that when [

Show Spoiler

the son got his commeuppance

] I didn't feel satisfied at all, didn't feel vindication. He just felt like another body, another piece of meat waiting to be perforated.

Wasn't that kind of the point?

[Morris Schæffer]

Wasn't that kind of the point?

You'll have to enlighten me.

[number8]

You'll have to enlighten me.

Revenge isn't satisfying. It doesn't change anything. This is the message you get in most revenge thrillers.

A lot of action movies tend to be hypocritical in preaching that but delivering a cathartic kill for the audience.

[Morris Schæffer]

Revenge isn't satisfying. It doesn't change anything. This is the message you get in most revenge thrillers.

Of course it changes something. The imbalance is dealt with and restored. You've taken something from me and now I will take you. Whether it is satisfying would depend on the person. Were I to buy a gun and go in search of the person who had killed my loved ones, pulling the trigger would likely destroy me mentally. Hell, I'm pretty sure I'd never make it to the point where I'd actually be able to pull the trigger. For a professional killer as John Wick, who kills as easily as you and I do do our laundry, I can imagine revenge to contain an element of catharsis. Certainly, our titular hero kills with reckless (and stylish) abandon, but perhaps there were moments in the movie where Wick acknowledged that what he was doing was nasty and unfullfilling. Which then begs the question why he would go on such a rampage in the first place.

[Scar]

Had a lot of fun with this one. Even though I knew the puppy was going to get killed, it damn near killed me when Wick wakes up to see that the dog crawled over to him in his dying moments.

Goddamnit....

[DavidSeven]

The script is a little dopey, but I have to appreciate a film that commits so fully to capturing action by camera instead of program. Stated differently, it's just refreshing to see action rendered through choreography and stuntwork over 1s and 0s. In its own way, John Wick is one of the more purely cinematic actioners in recent memory precisely because it relies so purely on the camera, the cutting, and the staging to elicit its thrills. I appreciated the film's back-to-basics approach; a skeletal, yet workable, narrative combined with cinematic and character elements that lift it above humdrum. As a dramatic experience, it's fairly lacking. The stakes never truly feel real, and the climax lands with a thud rather than a bang. The film, however, is wise enough to stay mindful of the protagonist's simple, if shallow, goal and allow the filmmaking to carry the rest. It bucks the modern action trend of over-stuffed plots and over-done digital work. Although it's far from high art, I'll take this modest bullet ballet over physics defying explosions and super-hero feats most days of the weak.

[Scar]

I agree with 8. Revenge is not satisying.

[number8]

Regardless of whether you think you would personally be satisfied or not (though I highly doubt you would), the point is that there are a lot of action movies where the main character seeks revenge, is told that it's not going to bring anything back, and then does it anyway and doesn't get anything. Or they have a realization that they have to move on some other way and end up happily ever after with the side love interest, etc. It's a standard narrative, but they rarely land because they would have these final boss fights and kills that make the audience cheer. So you're sitting there feeling, "Fuck yeah, fuck that guy!" but the hero is all emo and broken about it. I like that in this one, you're deliberately made to feel that feeling of, "That's it? What now?"

[Irish]

I'd buy into that more if the movie ended with the kid's death, but it doesn't. It awkwardly invents a reason to keep going (via Willem Defoe) and then plays to a bunch of action tropes. Captured hero. Chatty villain. Escape. More revenge. Big action climax.