Susan Granger’s review of “John Wick” (Summit Entertainment)
Keanu Reeves plays the taciturn titular character, a grieving widower whose sanity tips over the edge when Daisy, his beloved beagle puppy – a posthumous gift from his wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan) – is slaughtered and his classic 1969 black Mustang is stolen by a young thug, Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen).
Wick is a legendary mob hit man who retired to New Jersey, and now he’s determined to wreak homicidal vengeance. As it turns out, Iosef is the son of Russian crime lord Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist), who tells the lad, “It’s not what you did that angers me so, it’s who you did it to.”
Then, in paternal protective mode, Viggo puts a $2 million price on Wick’s head. So the carnage continues – as Wick is hunted by various assassins (Willem Dafoe, Ian McShane, Adrienne Palicki) who hang out in the Continental Club, a shadowy safe house in Manhattan, where tradition dictates that no ‘business’ may be conducted.
After delineating an initial series of improbable coincidences, pulpy screenwriter Derek Kolstad concentrates on the intense action sequences, as do director Chad Stahelski and producer David Leitch. Previously, Stahelski served as Keanu Reeves’ “Matrix” trilogy and “Speed’ stunt double, while Leitch doubled for Brad Pitt in “Fight Club” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” As veteran martial arts experts, stunt coordinators and second-unit directors, they’ve worked together for more than 20 years, forming their own 87Eleven Action Design with its group headquarters in an industrial complex near Los Angeles International Airport. What they aim for here is staging acrobatic, cartoonish violence, creating a dapper, daredevil killer who can efficiently blast bullet-riddled mayhem and annihilate dozens without wrinkling his black, three-piece suit.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “John Wick” is a relentlessly violent, fierce 5, revolving around revenge, retribution and redemption.
