About as generic as they come but with enough thrills and spills to compensate for this

Rating: 6/10 (12 February 2016)

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has been recently bereaved and as a last gift to him his late wife has given him a dog (presumably so that he won't be lonely and so that he has something to remember her by). A short while after a gang approach Wick with the intention of purchasing his car. Wick refuses to sell the car and has a minor altercation with one gang member and promptly drives off. Later, the gang track Wick down, beat him up, and kill his dog. It turns out that Wick was a former employee of Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist) who is the father of the man who killed Wick's dog. When Tarasov gets wind that Wick is the man that's coming after his son, he does everything he can to defend himself against someone whom he knows is a formidable adversary.
When I saw the premise for this film it reminded me of Revenge For Jolly - a truly awful film involving people getting revenge against someone for killing their dog. This put me off watching this film initially as I feared that this would be another awful 'dog-related' revenge film. Thankfully John Wick is a million times better than 'Revenge For Jolly' for several reasons.....
Keanu Reeves plays the title character of John Wick and it seems that he was channelling Liam Neeson in the Taken films. Inevitably, Reeves suffers by comparison because he arguably lacks the screen presence that Neeson brings, but he is still effective here - although sometimes it is hard not to feel as though you're watching a poor man's Liam Neeson in a poor man's Taken. Even though it feels like a poor man's Taken it is still very enjoyable basically for the same reasons that Taken is a good film in that once it gets going it very rarely loses momentum guaranteeing that boredom will not set in.
To me it felt like directors Chad Stahelski & David Leitch had watched a few Luc Besson films as the style and the fight choreography are very similar. It's fast and frenetic and both directors do well to get a credible performance from Reeves - he's not the most reliable of actors, but is actually quite good at being emotive here and screenwriter Derek Kolstad does a good job in setting the story up and getting some heart into the film.
As with most action films you get the impression that action comes first and writing comes second as there are a few flaws within the script; for starters we don't learn much about Wick's former employers, nor do we learn much about what they're all about. I didn't really understand why they needed to steal his car at the start or what was going on at the place where they delivered his car to? Was it stolen to order? It also seemed contrived that the gang were able to find Wick after they left him - unless they followed him home????
So yes John Wick has its fair share of flaws and yes there isn't much in the way of originality here. However, if you're looking for a fairly fast-paced thriller with plenty of impressive action sequences then this is definitely worth your time.