Jack Traven. Thomas Anderson. John Wick. Keanu Reeves is awesome again.

Rating: 9/10 (1 November 2014)

This movie stars Keanu Reeves and was directed by 2 stunt men, decades-long collaborators of Keanu who worked his action scenes in "Speed," "Point Break," and the "Matrix Trilogy." This alone, is a good indication of the violence in this movie.
Set almost entirely at night in an otherworldly New York City, an asphalt jungle exclusively inhabited by violent criminals whose coexistence derives from a delicate balance of honor code and savage ruthlessness, John Wick is a sleek homage to Sergio Leone's Old West. In a world of lawlessness and violence, breaking the code, is the only transgression.
With his trademark blank stare and sparse words, Keanu Reeves steps into a persona straight out of a Sergio Leone western- an unstoppable force of nature, roused out of nowhere, whose sole purpose is comeuppance.
John Wick is a retired legendary hit-man in quiet agony over the recent passing of his beloved wife. His only recourse, is Daisy, an adorable puppy left by his wife to give his solitary existence some purpose. A charged encounter with Iosef, a braggart Russian mafioso eyeing Wick's 1969 Mustang (love the nod to McQueen!), results in a home invasion that ends with Wick badly beaten, Mustang gone, and Daisy dead!
Anytime a baddie kills a dog in a movie, you know a world of pain beckons. This is where the fun starts.
Iosef had no idea of John Wick's murderous past, and his disrespectful excursion into John Wick's quiet world in a time of mourning has his father, Viggo, clearly worried. In one scene Viggo scolds Iosef, "he once killed 3 men with a pencil," and "completed the most impossible missions," but gave it all up for the woman he loved; thus effectively mythologizing John Wick's badassery for the viewer even before he threw his first punch.
From here, John Wick checks in at the Continental, an exclusive hotel for assassins and criminals. Peace is preserved only by a strict code that prohibits "doing business" in its premises. Half- friends and half-enemies welcome him back, but he says he's just visiting.
Once the action gets going, only the body count is left unsettled as John Wick dispatches of everyone with his John Woo-ish "gun-fu" leaving a bloodbath in his wake.
Jack Traven. Thomas Anderson. John Wick. Keanu Reeves is awesome again.