After watching Chapter 4, I am keen to watch all of the Wicks again as a piece.
A couple of local theatres have been playing marathons of the series. While I enjoy them, I could not bring myself to commit to that length of time.
It is a testament to this movie that I am only slightly reconsidering…
Calling Keanu Reeves an underrated performer is now a cliche.
If you have read any serious critique of the man’s gifts as a performer, you find a uniquely cinematic presence.
Are there times where his delivery hits the lines at an off angle? Sure, but particularly on this viewing, that idiosyncrasy is an attribute.
Reeves is nakedly human. His eyes, his bearing, his entire presence radiates a kind of fragile yet hardy humility.
There is something so naked and exposed about his eyes and face.
Now approaching 60, Reeves has transitioned into a new phase.
As someone with a physical impairment, I am obsessed with the way people move on screen.
While there are many performers - some in this film - who are possessed of great talents (speed, grace, flexibility), there is a specific kind of pathos and excitement older action stars.
I have a particular affinity for old action heroes - Harrison Ford might be Olympic-level for imbuing every move with effort and desperation; likewise for Bruce Willis. Jackie Chan is a great athlete but he is the master of making himself the underdog.
More recently I have come around on Roger Moore’s latter performances as Bond. His 80s Bond comes in for ridicule because he was in his fifties. I think it makes him more interesting.
Reeves has always been a gifted physical actor, but now the years have left their stamp. He moves with an added effort and deliberateness.
If this is Reeves’ last turn as Wick, it is a worthy sign-off. After three runs, it feels like Reeves and his collaborators have refined and sanded down this character to its purest form.
He embodies Wick’s world-weariness so well that it took a while for me to notice how little he was speaking - when he does speak, it feels surprising. He has a couple of one liners, but they are few and far between.
The first John Wick was a deliciously simple movie. The following two sequels have plenty to recommend them, but I came away from both feeling like they were somewhat bloated.
In contrast, Chapter 4 feels lithe and economical. And its conclusion feels definitive in a way that the previous movies did not.
From the opening scenes of Wick pummeling his fists to pulp against a post, Chapter 4 has a sense of drive and purpose. This film is better paced than the previous sequels - it is longer than any previous entry but it never feels its length.
Death has always loomed in the background of the Wick films, but this one feels particularly overt - the destruction of the Continental, as dusk hits New York, sets out a mood of inevitability that continues through the rest of the film.
Adding to the sense of closure, is a sense of a generational shift.
The mise-en-scene is packed with symbols of fallen empires, the villain is a literal aristocrat and the resolution of the conflict comes down to literal pistols at dawn.
Outside of the central storyline, there is a sense of succession - a younger generation that is outside the cycle of violence, and - in the case of one character - the exact opposite.
While some will be sheltered, the cycle of violence will continue.
If that sounds dark, it is. But the movie is a blast!
The film is divided into three chunks, centred around different international locales.
In a way the film resembles a portmanteau, or an anthology.
Each sequence is its own subplot with specific characters, goals and obstacles.
All of the set pieces feel distinct yet also proper escalations.
While the film has an overall colour palette, the filmmakers are savvy enough to make sure each environment has its own specific design, and each set piece has its own specific visual grammar.
The Osaka hotel set piece includes flunkies decked out in uniforms which are a cross between SWAT and samurai armour
The set piece in the Berlin nightclub is another masterclass of design and choreography - each section of the club is separated by waterfalls, and with distinct lighting and colour palette.
The finale takes place in Paris, which works as a mini-hommage/ripoff of Walter Hill’s The Warriors, complete with an anonymous DJ soundtracking the mayhem while reporting on Wick’s progress - there is even a new cover of ‘Nowhere to Run’.
This climactic battle is a triumph, a series of setpieces that take in multiple locations, characters and predicaments that I have no idea how any film, including John Wick 5, could top it.
A personal highlight of these final scenes is an extended overhead shot that takes in Wick’s progress through an apartment building as he mows through an army of goons
Despite the storyline and themes, the film has a great sense of comic timing and exaggeration - each set piece is composed of perfectly calibrated gags: Caine’s use of doorbell motion sensors in the kitchen fight; Akira stabbing the giant henchman dozens of times as he crawls up a flight of stairs.
Wick’s battle up the staircase is a superb instance of the franchise’s sense of humour - Wick battles his way up the staircase, only to be ambushed at the top and thrown back down. It is the action movie equivalent of Sideshow Bob standing on all those rakes.
As far as the new cast members, Donnie Yen slips in seamlessly as Caine, an old friend of Wick’s who is forced to work for the Table in exchange for keeping his daughter alive.
Yen is fantastic, developing a physicality that highlights the blind assassin’s impairment while showing how he has adapted to it.
He also builds an effective rapport with Reeves, a testament to his performance and the fact that they share relatively little screen time together.
Following his supporting role in last year’s Bullet Train (directed by John Wick’s co-director David Leitch), Hiroyuki Sanada also makes an impression as Shimazu Koji, another friend of Wick’s, who has now become the manager of the Osaka Continental.
As his daughter Akira, singer Rina Sawayama makes a solid screen debut, and is convincing in the action sequences - her theme song for the movie is catchy as well.
Introduced in the Berlin set piece, action star Scott Adkins is all sleaze as the sadistic Killa.
Adkins is clearly revelling in the part, and leans hard into the grotesqueness of the character. Despite his efforts, it is the one time where the film’s deft handling of genre flails. In a fat suit and puffing away on an inhaler, he is a collection of action movie cliches.
The biggest surprise of the cast is Shamier Anderson as Mr. Nobody, a tracker who follows Wick with his dog.
I am not familiar with his previous work, but from his moment on screen, he stands toe to toe with the starrier members of the cast, without fading into the background.
With a great voice and physicality, he fits in so well I would not be surprised if he shows up as the lead of one of the innumerable spin-offs that are supposedly on the way.
The character is also a prime example of what elevates this movie above its immediate predecessors - Mr Nobody also presents a unique variable to the set pieces, with a specific skill-set that prevents them from coming off repetitive.
Chapter 4 makes for an interesting reaction to the world-building of the previous movies, which I personally found a little too ridiculous.
This film takes the High Table seriously as a power hovering in the background, rather than a direct antagonist.
Instead Wick’s opponents are more clearly defined as loners like himself who are unable to get out of the Table’s grasp.
Caine is the first antagonist who is not presented as a villain, and his dynamic with Wick upholds one of the film’s - and the franchise’s - key themes: nothing is more important than family.
It is a fairly cliche idea, but the film takes it seriously - both of Wick’s friends in this film are driven by love for their loved ones - including Wick himself.
While this film is not overburdened with mythology, it does highlight how arbitrary the rules of the High Table are.
While de Gramont supposedly is the representative of those rules, he also epitomises how unimportant they are to the people at the top of the power structure.
Those rules exist to maintain the power of the assassin’s hierarchy - which means they are liable to change if their power is threatened.
The previously sacrosanct nature of the Continentals is over - one destroyed and another is invaded. He also sends a host of different groups to kill Wick before he can make it to the final duel.
In this film, the only code which endures is the brotherhood between the veteran assassins, John and his friends. Their brotherhood is beyond blood.
I will not spoil the ending, but I left this movie actually excited about where it could go next.
