Far too much cheap, point-blank killing for this to be a really good movie.

Rating: Null/10 (28 February 2015)

OK, I know it is a movie, a complete work of fiction, I know actors didn't really die. But this kind of movie glorifies point-blank execution killing justified because the guys being killed work for a Russian mafia in New York. But it still cheapens life and we simply have too much of that in our movies.
In general I like Keanu Reeves and I like his character here, John Wick, who formerly worked as a hit man for the same Russian gang that he has to turn against. He had successfully gotten out, "retired", and had a life with his loving wife. But she had a terminal illness and she died.
Still in grief, he gets a delivery at home, it is a cute puppy that his wife had arranged to be delivered right after her death, so he would have a companion and he could remember her.
Stopped for gasoline in his beautiful 1969 Mustang, puppy in the front seat, a guy walks up and asks "How much?" Shocked Wick simply says it is not for sale. The man says something rude in Russian then is shocked when Wick answers him, in Russian.
That night the dog alerts and Wick gets up to find three men in his house, they must have looked up his address from the Mustang's license plate. They beat him mercilessly, killed his dog, and stole his Mustang. (Sounds like an old western movie, doesn't it?)
Well this "guy" is the frivolous son of the Russian gang leader, and when the dad, Michael Nyqvist as Viggo Tarasov, finds out his son stole John Wick's car, and killed his dog, he knew Wick would hunt all of them down. Which is what he does, and that is mostly what the movie is about.
The other good role is Willem Dafoe as fellow hit-man Marcus, who appears to accept a $4 Million job to kill John Wick, but instead he ends up helping him.
This is just a plain shoot and kill revenge movie, and it could have been so much better but I suppose this is what appeals to movie- goers nowadays.