John Wick: Insanely Fun Action

John Wick: Insanely Fun Action

Sometimes, you just need to kick back, relax, and watch an action film with great choreography, cinematic camerawork, and a top-notch story that scratches every itch you have when it comes to viewing a film that packs a punch. While there have been very few new, entertaining action films that have piqued my interest in the last few years, there are still great places to find high caliber, thrilling films to satiate that urge. Enter 2014’s John Wick.

Directed by Chad Stahelski and created by Derek Kolstad, John Wick stars Keanu Reeves as the title character. After his wife, Helen, dies of a terminal illness, John receives one final gift in the mail: a beagle puppy, whom he promptly names Daisy after his wife’s favorite flower. John is content to grieve in peace with his newfound dog, growing attached to his pet in the process, seeing it as one last vestige of his wife that can help in his grieving process. However, just a few short days after receiving Daisy, he is harassed by Russian gangsters at a gas station who try and hassle him for his car. After refusing to give in, John’s house is broken into that night. The gangsters beat him bloody, steal his car, and kill Daisy in front of him.

As it turns out, these gangsters work for a Russian crime syndicate run by Viggo Tarasov. The gangster who dealt the fatal blow to Daisy, Iosef, is his son. John knows Viggo quite well: He used to be his employee, and the most dangerous assassin in the business. Now, to avenge the death of his dog and to regain his ability to grieve for his wife in peace, John Wick sets out on a path of revenge, killing everyone and everything in his path toward vengeance against Iosef and anyone at Viggo’s command who stands in his way.

The story is basic, the premise is simple, but none of that is as impressive as the level of commitment shown to this film by everyone involved. The script is snappy and unique for a film like this, with each character offering their own memorable presence in the movie. This goes not only for John Wick and Michael Nyqvist as Viggo, but also for other prominent characters in the film. Standouts include Willem Dafoe as Marcus, John’s former assassin associate, and Adrianne Palicki as Perkins, a contract killer whose path crosses with John’s throughout the film. Everyone manages to fit their roles in memorable ways, leading to potent, gripping scenes throughout the film. The relationships between characters like John and Marcus—or even Marcus and Viggo at one point—feel important not just to the story being told in this film, but to the wider world of assassins and underground crime that John Wick establishes.

But what stands out the most about John Wick is what you probably already know the film for: The expertly-crafted, fantastically-choreographed fight scenes that make up the bulk of memorable moments in the film. These range from stealth kills as John sneaks around a nightclub to all-out gunfights with Wick facing off against a dozen or so armed bodyguards. This doesn’t just happen while Wick wields his sidearm, however. One of the first action sequences in the film involves John taking down opponents with his bare hands after his weapon is stripped from him. The level of detail in these scenes—including an especially brutal kill with a knife—is what makes the movie so entertaining. It doesn’t need to have a deeper meaning outside of Wick’s revenge to be entertaining. Instead, it manages to pull audiences in with an atmosphere of cool, calculated moves that creates a whirlwind of action that will leave you on the edge of your seat.

There’s not much more I want to say for fear of ruining some of the film’s best elements. If you’re a fan of action films and don’t mind a little of the cheese that comes with many of them, then John Wick is going to be a great time for you, and I highly recommend it. Everything about the film is tailor-made for someone who wants to sit down with a bowl of popcorn and watch Reeves be an action hero for an hour and a half. It is well worth your time to watch Wick’s onslaught of revenge in full, especially if you’ve seen next to zero footage of the film itself. This gets my highest recommendation for entertainment value alone. A well-made film that accomplishes what it sets out to do and looks fantastic doing it.

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