Solid Action But Without Substance

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2016)

I love a good revenge story. There is about these kind of tales we can get behind, choose a side, and that's usually enough to justify the violence in most movies nowadays. John Wick is a revenge story, and on merits of it's action scenes a pretty amazing ride. However where it excels in quick paced action it certainly leaves a lot to be desired in story.
John Wick is a well to do man in his 30's, seemingly wealthy, and in love. His wife is beautiful and she has a way of making him whole, but these things rarely last, and his world is about to come apart at the seems. He has a hidden past, something he isn't proud of, but it's what has given him this life of luxury and the ability to spend so much time with his wife. Shortly after the beginning of the film, in which we find our main character badly wounded, we enter a series of flashbacks where we learn his wife had become ill to some unknown disease, and he has very little time to process this loss. As events unfold, John returns to his old ways, on a killing spree against new foes and some old ones as well.
The story that unfolds isn't great by any means, but there are some real amazing action sequences of such military precision that they are a pleasure to watch. Keanu Reeves underwent 4 months of firearms training and it really shows through his work. Some of the best action sequences are the close quarters hand to hand combat, where John Wick used a lot of Japanese Jujitsu, but incorporates his firearm in so many of the moves (slightly reminiscent of the film Equilibrium 2002). Although some might be turned off by the level of violence and high body count, this is really why you watch a movie like this.
Unfortunately the plot itself is so outrageously thin and badly written that it kind of ruins the whole thing for me. When I think of the classic revenge story, a few titles come to mind right away. Oldboy (2013) or Django Unchained (2012) for example. The main characters of these films are men obsessed with revenge, and you can easily understand why the characters would go to such lengths to get back at the people who have done wrong by them. This is what John Wick is missing, I couldn't understand why a man would throw his life away for the memory of someone who is already dead. He goes up against an army of Mafioso's and leaves bodies all over the city, and anyone who gets in his way is a dead man... but why? I couldn't grasp that concept in this film, and it left me so unsatisfied and crying in disbelief.
So, it does have some of the best fire fights I've seen in a film, and excellent hand to hand choreography (Michael Nyqvist nearly lost an ear!), but the whole premise of the movie kind of fell flat in my eyes. But I hear this is the first in a trilogy so they have lots of room to improve story line in the future.
6/10