Mindlessly Awesome

Rating: 9/10 (1 November 2014)

John Wick is a lot of things. It's an action thriller that starts with a jarring bang and never lets up. It's a modern-day western over-run by black hats. It's Refn's Drive, only faster, louder, funnier, and wilder. It's punchy and smooth, tough and violent, and refreshingly brash. It's also relatively straight-forward and by-the-numbersbut if you're gonna make a straight-forward, by-the numbers revenge thriller, take note: this is how you do it with hutzpah. Reeves plays a grieving husband whose wife, as her dying action, gets him a puppy to cope with the loss. When some Russian thugs break into his house to steal his car and kill his dog, he goes on a calculated killing spree to exact revenge. It's a corny, stupid premise that succeeds in part from Keanu's own personal history and the genuine sweetness in the dog-owner relationship. It's a fully formed universe of characters that we meet (the gangster hotel manager, the eccentric lobby boy, the good-natured dead-body clean-up crew) that nicely compliment the effectively awesome yet human Wick. Sure, there are moments of exploitation, and some may think it's just vengeance porn, but I disagree. The attitude of the film is pitch-perfect: it's an angry film that doesn't let its rage get in the way of its immense entertainment, and is never too serious for its own good. It perfectly balances the fast-loud with the slow-quiet. The non-linear storytelling, the sharp humor, and the portrayal of what happens between action scenes all give it a cool feel. Mindless entertainment? Maybebut when something's this excellent, who cares?