Mood-drenched actioner: nothing less but nothing more

Rating: 5/10 (9 February 2017)

Another typical adrenaline-fuelled 'revenge flick': lowlife angers unstoppable killing machine, carnage follows, secondary subplot develops, further carnage, lowlife dies, secondary subplots resolved by additional carnage, semi-redemptive ending with unstated promise of a sequel – need I say more. The movie would have benefited from little more focus on the 'underworld' motif and a few less exploding SUVs and generic Russian-mafia corpses-in-waiting. If you like this kind of thing in general, you'll really like the movie (hence the relatively high IMDb score); if you don't, you likely won't make it past the first death. I fall somewhere in between: I like these kind of movies when there is some substance underlying the style. Unfortunately, there is nothing to 'John Wick' beyond endless photogenic but interchangeable fight scenes.