It's brutally and beautifully savage.
John Wick
Grade: B Directors: David Leitch, Chad Stahelski
Screenplay: Derek Kolstad (The Package)
Cast: Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Michael Nyqvist ( Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol)
Rating: R
Runtime: 101 min.
by John DeSando
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is one bad boy in the sense that he comes out of retirement as an assassin to revenge the murder of his dog. Note the levity that comes from the thought of scores of evil internationals terminated by John in the name of his dog.
However, that irony is a part of this stylish thriller, where, unlike in Denzel Washington’s Equalizer, each murder is carefully crafted, in Wick the baddies are shot quickly in the head while no humanity, much less planning, is necessary. John quietly dispatches the enemy as if he were born to the skill, and indeed not even Liam Neeson would seem capable of toppling John now.
This film sports a worthy kingpin, played the estimable Michael Nyqvist, and the reliable john Leguizamo as a chop-shop owner with an admirable yet dangerous loyalty to friends. The hyper-violence is served up by director Chad Stahlewski, Reeves’ former stunt man directing excitingly for the first time.
Jonathan Euschio as stunt coordinator breaks windpipes and other body parts with the efficiency of a surgeon. Add tailored suits and spare dialogue and you have the usual thriller grounded in style, pleasing to watch but fulfilling only if you don't demand logic or demand sympathy. It's cold out there.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
