Excellent action/revenge film.

Rating: 8/10 (19 September 2016)

The Three Acts:
The initial tableau: In modern day greater New York/New Jersey, John Wick's wife Helen suddenly dies of a long lingering illness. His old acquaintance Marcus gives his condolences after the burial. He grieves for an interval. In the days after the wake, a puppy, Daisy, is delivered with a note from Helen. John and Daisy get to like each other. While out with Daisy getting gasoline, two Russian mobsters stop for gas at the same time. Iosef admires John's Mustang, and offers to buy either the car or the dog or both. John declines, and an older associate calls Iosef off. Iosef and two friends break into John's house, beat him up, ruin beautiful things, shoot Daisy, steal the Mustang, badly damage his newer car, and steal the bracelet of Helen's that John kept near him.
Delineation of conflicts: Daisy was John's last living link with Helen. The necklace had similar importance. John wants vengeance on Iosef and on Viggo. Aurelio informs Viggo of Iosef's actions. Viggo understands the problem that Iosef has created. "That f*ckin' nobody is John Wick." he informs Iosef the idiot. He advises Iosef to get out of his sight. He asks his associate, Avi, to task all his available men to take on John. When that fails, he sets a bounty of 2 million USD on John's head, and also asks Marcus to do the job as soon as possible. Will Viggo live through this?
Resolution: The many conflicts were resolved in what I thought were reasonable ways. I recommend this film to anyone who likes the genre.
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There are some great music tracks in this film, and the incidental music was well chosen. The actors were well miked, and I had no problems picking up dialog.
For a revenge movie, this had a fine script. The direction and the plot lines certainly raised my hopes that John would succeed in everything that he tried. Plus, the end of Iosef is something I looked forward to from very early on. I seldom get that engaged with revenge films. I loved the humour between old pairs of friends while there were lulls in the action.