"John Wick" takes all the clichés of this kind of story and turns them into gold

Rating: 9/10 (23 March 2017)

In theory, "John Wick" shouldn't work. It's "Taken" with Keanu Reeves. It's the "let's create a middle-aged action hero with unrivaled skills whose first name starts with J" formula. And yet, director Chad Stahelski and writer Derek Kolstad take the very best of that formula and elevate it into art – undoubtedly one of the best American-made pure action movies of the 21st century.
Keanu Reeves fits so effortlessly into this story as John Wick, a former hit-man who has just lost his wife to an illness. After having a random encounter with the son of a crime lord he once worked for, the young man decides to target Wick and attacks him in his home. More significantly, he commits one particular crime that pushes Wick over the emotional brink and back into the criminally underbelly from which he thought he'd walked away forever.
The emotional plot device that launches this story out of canon might seem a little cheap, but it works powerfully well. In a way, Kolstad knows that we know the "retired hero steps back into the ring" trope so well, that he manipulates it to his advantage. We get behind our new anti-hero in a heartbeat. The cherry on that sundae comes in a one- word line of dialogue from crime lord Vigo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist) when learns just who his son (Alfie Allen) has messed with: "Oh."
The body of the film is R-rated bloody mayhem that combines martial arts with a shoot 'em up style, which results in a surprisingly satisfying combination punctuated by a plethora of kill shots to the head, a phrase I never thought I'd use in a movie review. The sound effects and spraying blood dust echo video game sequences; in fact, there's a scene in which Wick assaults a safe house that's cut with a guy in the safe house playing a first-person shooter game. It's a nice, well-executed and majorly self-aware juxtaposition.
Stahelski also brings a graphic novel aesthetic to the film. There's a lot of careful shot composition and a dark color palette with different colored hues. The way he stitches together two scenes -- one of Vigo lecturing his son about his terrible mistake and the other of Wick going into his basement to dig up the weapons he's buried – has a distinct comic book vibe.
Reeves has the perfect amount of quiet, determined menace to bring the part to life, but "John Wick" also drew some impressive talent in other venerated actors between Nyqvist, Willem Dafoe, John Leguizamo and Ian McShane. They lend so much legitimacy to the criminal fantasy world of "The Hotel."
If all that weren't enough, the script does circle around some ideas about whether a person can change. As much forward thrust as the opening scenes give this film, Kolstad doesn't settle with it. It digs a little deeper into what really motivated John to get back in the business and proposes it might have been inevitable.
"John Wick" is a successful combination of style and storytelling, and it really elevates the very basic genre-level appeal of this type of action movie. It's unusual for a movie to be one of the last ones to the party (this party being all the films about middle-aged assassins seeking revenge) and be the one to make the biggest impression. That's the sign of a great action movie.
~Steven C
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