Is the epic, non-stop action orgy called John Wick: Chapter 4 too much of a good thing? Probably, but, as I was sitting in my theater seat with my jaw unhinged for nearly three hours in such a state of ecstatic bliss, I did not care. I remember after seeing the third installment I doubted if they could ever top that. How wrong I was.
The first John Wick film was a surprise sleeper hit. The premise couldn’t be simpler. Keanu Reeves plays a fearsome hitman. They kill his beloved dog. He kills everyone else. Soaked in a neo-noir atmosphere it created this alternate universe where the “High Table” ruled the criminal underworld with a specific set of ironclad rules. There is also a criminal safe haven hotel in New York run by Winston (Ian McShane) and his steely concierge (Lance Riddick). The second and third sequel only accentuated this surreal universe where a laconic Reeves in a Kevlar suit and long hair battles scores of killers in scene after scene of wildly choreographed fight sequences that felt like a live-action Manga.
Part spaghetti western, part cartoonish Asian action film, in John Wick: Chapter 4 director Chad Stahelski (who began as stunt man and double for Reeves) goes for broke as John Wick’s violent actions (against an Elder) has caused him to ex-communicated by the High Table. And anyone who enables him becomes a target too. An evil, wealthy, impeccably-dressed Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) has put a world-wide bounty on his head and villains from all over are after him. A blind assassin (astounding Donnie Yen) and a mysterious tracker named Nobody (terrific Shamier Anderson) traveling with a trained dog are included in this mix. I loved when Nobody ordered his canine to attack with a specific word like “crotch.”
Like Clint Eastwood’s character in the Sergio Leone Italian westerns, Reeves’ character is a man of few, deeply guttural words. But as he attempts to overturn his fate Wick travels the globe, from a wild fight in Osaka, to another at a water-drenched, Berlin disco where dancers are wildly gyrating all the while Wick battles a hulking giant with gold teeth wearing a purple suit. There’s a mind-boggling sequence where Wick dodges cars and killers at the Arc de Triomphe. And a lengthy staircase sequence leading up to the Sacre-Coeur Bascilica that certainly rivals the “Odessa Steps” sequence of Battleship Potemkin or Laurel & Hardy in The Music Box. The amazing choreography of the action sequences is similar to those in Hollywood musicals choreographed by Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Hermes Pan and Busby Berkeley.
“The bloodshed in Osaka was not necessary,” complains someone to the Marquis who straightforwardly responds, “The bloodshed was the point.” That is basically the core of this gloriously bonkers blood and bullet ballet.
