All for a dog

Rating: 8/10 (3 November 2014)

Enter the world of mob hit men, John Wick was the greatest the Russian mob ever had as a hired asset, dubbed not as the Boogeyman, but as the one they call to kill the Boogeyman. John then retires after finding a girl and marrying. Recently losing his wife to an illness, John receives her final gift, a dog he named Daisy, so that he can continue on loving something. One day, Iosef, the Russia mob's crown prince who don't know the mob's history, attacked John, killing Daisy and taking John's '69 Boss Mustang, after John previously denied his offer to buy the car. The Russian mob kingpin Viggo, Iosef's father, tried to negotiate with John, only for john to hang up the phone on him. John easily snuff out the hit men Victor sends at him. Viggo hires Marcus, John's old friend to kill John. Meanwhile John goes to stay at the Continental hotel, which is actually a neutral place where hit men don't kill each other. He meets old acquaintances there; Perkins and Winston, who informs him of Iosef's location. John storms the place, killing many henchmen, but Iosef slips away.
When John returns to the Continental, Marcus has a clean shot opportunity at him, but he shoots a warning shot as Perkins storms into the room. John neutralizes her, extracts some info and leaves her to another 'hotel guest'. John goes and burns Viggo's money stash but then he gets caught. As Viggo leaves John for his two henchmen to kill, Marcus snipes one of them and John takes care of the other. He then storms at Viggo but he lets Viggo live after he tells him Iosef's location. John storms the place and quickly kills Iosef. Viggo doesn't stand still and has Perkins kill Marcus for not killing John when he had the chance. The Continental's 'management' goes to Marcus's place and execute Perkins for breaking the Continental's rule. They also inform John of Viggo's location. John storms the place, impeding Viggo's run. John and Viggo have a final fight where John intentionally lets himself get stabbed by Viggo only to lock his arm, retake the knife and jam it to Viggo's neck. John then gets another dog from a dog shelter.
Okay, I admit the story feels like a lame choice for a movie. For me personally, it even gets to feel like a guilty pleasure. There's no real invention at the story; a hard boiled killer going out his retirement to exact revenge. There's really nothing new added to this movie. It's even so very predictable in how the story unravels itself. All the elements of a classic ninety-minute revenge action movie is there; the cause, the conflict, the hunt, and the target escaping once or twice before the final showdown.
Yet I find that this movie really knows what other elements to maximize to compensate for the mediocre story. It nicely grasp the dramatization of the revenge cause as a sad story but also simultaneously as funny. I really like the screenplay and dialog emphasize this on the way Aurelio explains his story and Viggo's reaction early on. The dialog on that part is a superb piece that cracked my laugh. But then it gets back to serious as we see John stroking the dead Daisy's head.
The action is also a strong point in this movie, possibly even it's strongest point. Unlike typical action movies, this movie doesn't offer realistic tactical firefights as the most of the shootings happen in up and close point blank range. There's also less of beautifully choreographed martial arts trade of moves as the fights quickly turn into ground grappling moves which is the most realistic choice to go in the real world. Instead at times the character John Wick presents us with quite a combination of gun shooting and fighting, making him look like he's doing a hard and stylish action of 'gun dance'.
The acting is just a decent overall work for me. Keanu Reeves did great in portraying the calm hit man exacting his revenge. Michael Nyqvist did quite well in portraying a balance of all the aspects of Viggo's character; the ruthlessness and also the cowardice. Having Willem Dafoe and John Leguizamo also did the movie a great favor, although I think that they deserve even more significant parts.
John Wick (2014) really deserves an 8 out of 10 score for me. A recommendation is definitely a yes. Although without any unique thing to offer in the story department, this movie can sure make up for it at the action side, and making the early irony something fun to watch.