“John Wick”

Rated R for strong and bloody violence throughout, language and brief drug use

I was all for catching Bill Murray’s latest film St. Vincent. But traffic and those ubiquitous, if not vertiginous, orange cones and barrels along the path to my occasional movie theater rearranged my plans and I ended up involuntarily seeing “John Wick. Retired hit man, John Wick (Keanu Reeves), finds his life rerouted and is involuntarily compelled to stack up bodies and make the NRA and a particularly amusing cleaning service pleased for the business.

John Wick has been living the good life for five years. He quit working for a Russian crime lord (Michael Nyqvist), got married, and padded around his ultra-modern house. Through flashbacks, we learn that his wife is dying of some disease. After she is dead, in deep mourning, he receives a delivery, which is a cute beagle and a sentimental note from his departed wife. Here is a gift he can love and mourn with as the note from his wife tells him. 

Wick’s problems come back to him when he is gassing up his muscle car (1969 Mustang) when thugs leer at his car. The spoiled little gangster’s son (Alfie Allen), the personification of the sniveling bully and arrogant sociopath, lusts after his car and expects to buy it by intimidation. That does not work on John Wick. So, one night, the bad guys break in his house and take the only two things he now loves.

All bets are off when a puppy is killed. We all know that. It is one of the Ten Commandments (or is it in the Constitution?) and if it isn’t I am sure it is in the Bible somewhere or the Boy Scout Manual.  Nevertheless and without doubt we are all cheering when John Wick kills everybody because of it. In fact, I am fairly sure the town is practically depopulated. And who regrets the violence? Not I. Kill a puppy and prepare to die a violent death. 

Willem Dafoe and Ian McShane get to play good-bad guys and that was fun to watch. And John Leguizamo breezes by as a man of principles among men without any. These campy characters are well played and richly depicted thanks, no doubt, to directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski.

John Wick is a festival of violence richly painted and artistically choreographed. There is actually a “feel” to the movie that is more ethereal than the usual topping of grit and gun oil. I thought this had to be a graphic novel with a swarm of cult followers; but apparently not. Prior to the film’s release John Wick was inserted in a computer game but, nope, this is original material. I suspect Mr. Wick might soon come back as an avenger of human puppies.

There are loads of silly improbabilities and downright blunders in this movie but this is really just an opportunity that one can fulfill all of our dreams of revenge on them that “done us wrong.”

“John Wick” is a very violent film, and Mr. Reeves delivers a perfectly toned performance even though he brings more than a tiny bit of his Matrix persona with him in this movie.  Not a bad thing for those who are nostalgic for the franchise.  

I was reading the blog posts of folks who already saw “John Wick.” Most are impressed with the movie. However, one particularly dim-witted moron (and obviously a non-dog owner) asked why Mr. Wick is sending off all these blackguards to their proper reward without so much as a “Dos Vadanya.” All those deaths over a dog? “It is just a dog” we keep hearing in the film.

Of course, the dog represents what he lost and loved: his wife; his happy post hit-man life; a feeling of stability and purpose. This is the point of the story and the excuse for all those delightful acts of exquisite violence.

Moron-who-wrote-that-comment-on-the-blog: a dog is never “just a dog.” John Wick is on his way over to your place to make that point clear to you. Don’t expect a “Dos Vadanya” from Mr. Wick … or from me.

“John Wick” earns four bow ties out of five.