Almost as Good as Its Predecessor

Rating: 7/10 (20 April 2017)

This film essentially begins where its predecessor ended with the Russian assassin "John Wick" (Keanu Reeves) in the process of locating his stolen Ford Mustang which has been transported to a local garage for resell. As it so happens, the owner of this illegal garage is the brother of the crime lord who John killed in the first film. Not realizing the intense sentimental value John has for this car "Abram Tarasov" (Peter Stormare) decides to defend his territory rather than simply giving John his car back. Sure enough, John kills everyone who gets in his way and soon enters Abram's office. To Abram's surprise, rather than just killing him then and there, John offers peace. Naturally, Abram accepts immediately and breathes a sigh of relief as John takes his damaged car and leaves. Unfortunately for John, he soon finds out that he cannot retire and live in peace as another crime lord named "Santino D'Antonio" (Riccardo Scamarcio) comes to his house and demands that he honor a marker which John previously swore to uphold whenever it was presented. When John refuses Santino has his house destroyed along with several other valuable keepsakes that John treasured. With no other place to stay John goes to the Continental Hotel and once there the owner named "Winston" (Ian McShane) reminds John that he cannot turn down Santino's marker. Although he is extremely reluctant, John finally decides to accept the marker and fulfill the job Santino demands of him. However, as Winston later tells Santino, the decision to force John back into the world he truly wants to quit is going to have severe consequences for everyone involved. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a fine sequel which managed to combine an interesting plot with a great amount of action. Having said that, even though I thoroughly enjoyed this film, I don't believe it was quite as good as the first movie. Almost-but not quite. Another thing I would like to mention is that while this film certainly set the stage for another installment, I fear that--like so many movies made during this current time--the third film might degenerate into mindless action completely lacking any realism or imagination whatsoever. I suppose time will tell. In any case, I thought this was a pretty good movie and I have rated it accordingly. Above average.