Keanu Reeves' best role and best performance

Rating: 10/10 (1 May 2019)

Keanu Reeves is John Wick, an ex-hitman who, on the day of his wife's funeral receives a puppy as a final token of love from his wife. When thugs break into his home, kill the puppy and steal his beloved and rare Ford Mustang, he sets out for revenge which leads him on a path that brings him back to his former lifestyle and pits him against the Russian mob.
'John Wick' is not only a terrific action movie but in my opinion, is definitely Keanu Reeves' best role and best performance.
The movie is directed by long-standing stuntmen Chad Stahelski and David Leitch and the stunts in it are seriously impressive and Keanu Reeves performs the majority of his own stunts himself, which is really good to see. They have made a slick looking movie with not only some incredible action scenes but some really good dialogue scenes too.
Michael Nyqvist plays the main villain, and head of the Russian mob, Viggo Taraso, and Alfie Allen is Iosef, Taraso's arrogant and foolish son who was the leader of the thugs behind the attack on Wick's home.
All the acting in this film is superb and as I said, this is easily Keanu Reeves' best movie since 'The Matrix' and definitely his best performance. Not just for the action scenes, but there are some fantastic emotional scenes too that involve a great deal of anger and despair and Reeves is seriously incredible in all of these too.
This is such a good movie because it's not just a revenge action shoot-em-up movie, there is so much more, there's actually a lot of interesting character developments, you learn a lot about this underworld of criminals.
The action in this movie is almost unrelenting once it's starts, amazing shoot-out sequences, intense hand to hand combat sequences and what makes it more enjoyable, more believable is that you can see it's actually Reeves doing all this, it's not a stuntman, and this is what Keanu Reeves is good at, he knows how a good action movie should be. He famously did his own stunt work in both 'Speed' and the majority of stunts in all three of 'The Matrix' movies.
'John Wick' is a non-stop action movie which has a smart script, a terrific hero, great villains and some heart-pounding action scenes. It's great to see a movie made by directors who understand the action genre so well and who have made a slick, appealing movie with an amazing cast.
But as I said, this isn't just an action movie, it's so much more and the dialogue scenes are just as intense as the fight scenes.
If there were any faults in the movie, I'm finding it hard to think of any. The final scene of the movie seemed a little sloppy and forced, but that's it, really, I couldn't find fault. This is an action movie that knows what it is and a lead actor who knows how to immerse himself in a role.