Review: John Wick
Directed by Chad Stahelski • 2014 • 101 min
There is something to be said for efficiency in action filmmaking. In a genre that relies primarily on pace and tone, it’s easy to fall into the trap of overwrought love stories, convoluted premises, or interpersonal melodrama in a bid at artistic legitimacy. Films often suffer for it. In John Wick, stunt-coordinator Chad Stahelski’s directorial debut, these tropes are invoked, but only in the most superficial, self-aware, efficient ways possible. They provide a cleverly stripped down framework for one of the best action films to come out of Hollywood in years.
When retired hit-man John Wick’s (Keanu Reeves) wife (Bridget Moynahan) dies, she leaves behind a gift to help him grieve. On the night of her funeral, a package arrives: a puppy and a love note. Hopeful, John gets back into his routine, his affection for the dog rising quickly. After a late-night burglary, John is left beaten, with his prized 1969 Mustang gone and the puppy dead in his arms.
The set-up is pure pulp. The coincidences involved are just too perfect. The car thief (Alfie Allen) is the cocky, spoiled son of mob boss Viggo Tarasof (Michael Nyqvist). But Viggo isn’t just any mob boss, he is John’s former employer, and he owes much of his success to John’s final hit. And John isn’t just any hit-man. Viggo calls him Baba Yaga, but he clarifies that John isn’t the bogeyman, he’s who you call when you want to kill the bogeyman. What follows is a straightforward pull-me-back-in revenge plot with all the fixings: the cache of weapons in the basement, the return to the fold and the over-the-hill former contacts, the broken loyalties of old, and the team of crack shots brought in to take John out.
The simplicity of this introduction gets us moving into the action at break-neck speed. John’s motivations aren’t meant to be complex, and Stahelski manages his material incredibly well. His action chops are obvious. As Reeves’s Matrix stunt double, he is not only gifted in crafting some of the most refreshingly coherent and thrilling fights I’ve seen onscreen, he also seems to know just how to capitalize on the actor’s physicality.
Where the director really shines though, is in how he plays with an overdone genre, obeying all the rules to the extreme while breathing new life into it. Offering a perfunctory transgression, a simple, straightforward excuse for the revenge narrative, Stahelski cuts through wasted exposition to jump into the action. And there is something so incredibly sentimental, yet efficient, in placing the dog in John’s arms. He becomes a thoroughly broken man, believably pushed over the edge. His “opportunity to grieve unalone” is stolen from him, leaving only a deep desire for payback.
Despite such simplicity in storytelling, a compelling existential narrative emerges. Who is John when everything is taken from him? Returning to his former life, his membership in a secret society of criminals reveals not only his multiple, conflicting identities, but also the film’s skill at cheeky, over-the-top world building. John is very much a part of two worlds. He can return to a hotel where everyone knows his name, where other killers can fraternize, where, temporarily, no business may be discussed, where a unique currency of gold coins is accepted by all members of this strange in-group.
The film certainly isn’t without its weaknesses and wasted moments. While it opens with an elliptical back and forth through time, an effective way to compress the action, it feels a bit overdone. The very first scene takes us far into the plot, hinting that John may not make it to the end. This feels forced and unnecessary. The film isn’t about tension, suspense, or foreboding. We get little satisfaction in discovering how John eventually reaches this point. Instead, the film opens on a low and superfluous note.
It’s unlikely that John Wick will be remembered as much more than a mildly successful genre film, and that’s a shame. On the one hand, it very much is that, but on the other, it’s a great reminder of the contradictory pleasures of genre cinema, giving us exactly what we expect and have already seen while still surprising us, or at the very least keeping our rapt attention.
John Wick is in good company. Its existential, male melodrama is certainly in the vein of Drive. The minimalistic fights rely more on the physical skills of Reeves and his co-stars (not to mention the stunt coordinators) than on kinetic editing or visual effects. This is a refreshing exception to the norm, also put to good use recently in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. The screenwriters even included a direct reference to Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge, though Le Samouraï perhaps offers a more fitting counterpart.
In short, the film is part of a rich tradition of action cinema. It doesn’t pass itself off as anything else. This commitment eschews any shame in such a commercial product and gives the film a chance to really shine.
John Wick is currently available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD. A sequel, also directed by Stahelski, has been announced.