Keanu Reeves repays a favour in this hit-man stinker. Not good. VERY not good!

Rating: 2/10 (21 January 2015)

Another day, another review. In the case of John Wick, there's a really short version: Don't bother.
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is a recently bereaved man whose wife, Helen (Bridget Moynahan) kindly, inexplicably, managed to replace herself with a perfectly timed puppy so that John won't be lonely. He also owns a car. Shortly after burying his wife, John takes his dog and fills up his car at the gas station where he attracts the attention of thug Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen, recently seen in Plastic). Iosef wants the car, John doesn't want to sell it, Iosef resolves the issue that night by rearranging John's face, killing the dog and stealing the car. Needless to say, John is a little narked and phones up Iosef's dad, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist) to complain. The thing is, John Wick is a retired hit-man and all-round killing machine.
John Wick could have been resolved painlessly in five minutes: "Your son killed my dog and now I want to kill him. If you don't let me, I'll kill everybody you employ, everybody you know and every inanimate object you own." "Okay, he'll be home in half an hour. Come on over"
No such luck.
It starts slowly, stutters and plummets thereafter.
John Wick is the type of film that gives credibility to the opinion that Keanu Reeves stinks on the big screen. It isn't right (sometimes), it isn't fair but in this instance it is fairly accurate. In reality, Reeves is the second best thing (after the dog) in this tedious, ham-fisted mess that attempts to be a thriller, but I suspect there is more to it than that. He isn't awful, he just doesn't appear to be trying. He gives every impression of gritting his teeth, and taking the money before he wanders back into the safe obscurity of the horizon. He looks bored and I suspect he's fulfilling a favour and hoping he escapes in tact.
John Wick is the directorial debut of both Chad Stahelski (stunt coordinator and Reeves' double on Constantine, The Matrix films, The Replacements, Point Break) and an uncredited David Leitch, who happened to be a stuntman on Constantine and Matrix Revolutions. Either this is one hell of a favour or Keanu Reeves lost big time on the between-the-scenes poker marathons.
As we found with The Interview and This is the End, having two directors doesn't mean the film is going to be twice as good. John Wick is proof again that if one director can't make it work, a second director only serves to shoulder the blame. Stahelski and Leitch have hired a goon to 'write' this mess and have then proceeded to direct it in the same manner i.e. in block capitals and armed with wax crayons.
Scattered throughout John Wick are subtitles that float across the screen (no bad thing) with random words picked out in block capitals to give the impression of the speakers SHOUTING random WORDS whenever they feel LIKE it (VERY bad THING indeed!). I'm just going to gloss over the needlessly capitalized words sprinkled through them.
The performances in John Wick are frequently, painfully wooden and from a cast that also either owed favours (Willem Dafoe) or were cheap (the rest). It plods, lines are repeated and the costume design clearly consisted of shopping; EVERYONE is wearing brand new clothes!
John Wick contains some fine action sequences in which Keanu Reeves swings a variety of weapons with maximum effect, but when there is complete reliance on blood spatter and gunfire and a complete oversight when it comes to script, direction, performance, logic and reason, no matter how good your star is, your film is in serious trouble.
To refer to my original statement, there is a slightly longer short version:
Don't waste your time, money or breath watching, thinking or talking about John Wick.
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