Movie Review: "John Wick"

"John Wick": B-. My favorite professor at Notre Dame was Easy Joe Ryan, a former Chicago newspaper man who taught freshman composition.  His nickname came about not from his grading methods -- heavens no!  It had to do with his cool demeanor, his patience and his kindness.  I am not sure what his family history was, but he lived by himself in Lyons Hall.  No matter how well a student thought he had written, Easy Joe could find several places for improvement.  I corresponded with Professor Ryan via Christmas cards for a number of years after I graduated, until his brother notified me of Joe's passing some time around 1978.

I was thinking of my old prof Wednesday afternoon when, by default, I sat through John Wick at the West End theater.  If I had written the script for that movie and submitted it to Easy Joe, it's likely he would have returned it to me replete with dozens of not-quite-acerbic comments, all written with the fire engine red ink he favored, admonishing me to try harder.  Viewing John Wick drove home the fact to me that, when putting together a film to appeal to the targeted demographic, presumably males under 40, you don't have to strive for greatness.  What you strive for are fast cars, non-stop action, and a high body count.  Evaluated under that premise, John Wick hits the mark.

The story-telling structure is one we've seen before.  In the opening sequence, Wick (Keanu Reeves) drives his car at a relatively slow speed, head-on into a barricade in front of a loading dock.  He slowly opens the door and half-falls into the street.  The blood all over his clothing and upon his face clearly could not have resulted from the impact.  He must have been in a fight.  We wonder if the lead eponymous character is going to croak ninety seconds into the film.  But, no, 'tis not to be.  As Wick takes out his cell phone to take one last look at his deceased wife on video, the story flashes back so we can see how he got into this predicament.

Wick is a "retired" hit man who used to work for the Russian mafia in New York City.  The mafia's kingpin is Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), who has a real dolt for a son.  The son, Iosef (Alfie Allen), makes the stupid decision to steal Wick's 1969 Mustang, and exacerbates the stupidity level by intentionally killing Wick's dog in the process.  Among other things, Iosef is unaware of two important facts.  First, because the dog was given to Wick posthumously by Wick's wife, Wick considers it the main link between him and her memory.  Second, Iosef is clueless that his chosen victim is a former hit man once employed by Viggo.  Even when the owner of Iosef's chop shop, Aureilo (John Leguizamo), gives him a heads up on the Mustang's owner, Iosef shrugs it off as a minor inconvenience.  When Aurelio then gives Viggo a call to tell him what Iosef has done, that's when the story kicks into another gear. 

John Wick is to guns what Bruce Lee movies were to martial arts.  Whenever Wick gets into a fight, which is often, he is always outnumbered by the bad guys.  But just like in the martial arts movies, the villains line up one at a time to do battle with the hero.  The thought apparently never occurs to them to rush Wick en mass.  Also, they conveniently come out from behind their hiding places and fire a few wayward shots before Wick easily plugs them.  It makes no difference how far away Wick's target may be.  He is deadly with a hand gun from any distance; no need for a rifle.  On occasion, the mafia baddies bring knives to a gun fight.  One interesting, albeit physically impossible, technique employed by Wick is that whenever he flips a guy over his shoulder, he manages to keep one hand free so that he is able to fire his hand gun point blank before the fallen warrior can rise.

This movie has other "touches" which are noteworthy.  John holes up for a couple of nights at The Continental, a hotel which caters to assassins.  The one house rule is that no "business" can be conducted on hotel premises.  By the way, don't make the mistake of assuming that all the paid killers are of the male persuasion!  Willem Dafoe plays Marcus, an older mentor who shows up at the funeral of Wick's wife, but then accepts a $2 million contact to bump off his protege.  Marcus' calling card is that, no matter whom he's paid to shoot or in what location, he always gains access to a perfect rooftop perch with an absolutely clear view of his prey.  How lucky can a killer be?  I also liked Charlie (David Patrick Kelly).  Need a dozen dead bodies removed, no questions asked?  Just call Charlie and make dinner reservations for twelve.

There is a scene about a third of the way through the movie which struck my funny bone.  It involves a conversation in Wick's doorway between Wick and a cop named Jimmy (Thomas Sadoski).  Jimmy peers in and sees a corpse in the hallway, but because Wick is a friend, they simply bid each other good night.  It wasn't until then that I realized that the movie is practically devoid of humor; I decided to keep count of how many times the writers and director gave us a break from the tense action by using a funny line.  The final tally was three (in a ninety-six minute movie).

I wrote above that I ended up seeing John Wick "by default."  My original plan was to see Fury, but the ticket seller at the West End told me that it would not be shown that day due to a special, unadvertised event for a private audience.  At that point my only options were to view St. Vincent, Bill Murray's latest which had already started ten minutes earlier, or JW.  I would have preferred Murray, but since I didn't want to start watching after it had already started, I opted for the latter.  At least I got to see if Keanu Reeves had improved his acting ability since I first saw him in 1994's Speed.  Not so much.