Long live the man of Action

Rating: 9/10 (30 April 2017)

I grew up watching movies with alpha males doing what alpha males do. whether it was the 60's with John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Sean Connery and Steve Mcqueen. The 70's with Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Roger Moore, Gene Hackman and Burt Reynolds. Or the 80's with Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stalone, Steven Segal, Arnold Scwarzeneggar, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Van Damn. Something happened in the 90's with regards to the action genre, and Keanu Reeves was the only actor from that time forward who ever seemed to keep the tradition going, I liked Speed, the Matrix better and John Wick best of all. Reeves like all the names I mentioned get's guff for not being a "Serious Actor". My retort..who cares? While hold overs from early years like Willis, Segal, Gibson Van Damn and stalone continued making descent action flicks after the 90's. Reeves is the only actor I can think who basically came on the scene in the 90's who stayed true to his roots and is single handily keeping this genre alive.
John Wick is a dark film that reminds me of Blade Runner, Dark City, and From Hell with regards to production, only the lens filter used in this movie was so dark it almost becomes distracting. (this is not the only recent film I can think of that has this problem) Aside from this one technical problem, the movie was perfect. While not as gritty as Able Ferrera's Fear City or as comic book as The Payback from the 90's it seems to meet in the middle of these two films somewhere. The action scenes are some of the best ever put to film, the soundtrack animates the movie as much as the fight sequences, and it has absolutely Zero political correctness factor to it which is so refreshing. I liked this movie a lot. Long love the man of action.