You’ll see what I mean (Spoilers)
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) has recovered from the injuries that should have killed him ten times over in the last movie and, with the help of the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), is continuing his war against the High Table. In response, the Marquis Vinent Bisset de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) is granted special powers to take down John once and for all.
A Very Punchable Face
The series has introduced a lot of loathsome villains over the years. Like Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen) who killed John’s dog or Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), who blew up his house. The Marquis is the most hate-able of them all though. Maybe he felt that was his duty as a Frenchman.
If you think I’m exagerating, the Marquis’ first action in the movie is to blow up the Continental, while making its manager Winston Scott (Ian McShane) watch. The Marquis then follows that up by declaring that without a hotel, Winston doesn’t need a concierge anymore. So then he kills Charon (Lance Reddick), who became one of my favorite characters in the series by doing more than saying “Mr. Wick” with his awesome voice.
New Faces
John Wick: Chapter 4 introduces a lot of new characters. While that might have been a side effect of the filmmakers originally planning on making a Chapter 5 back-to-back with this one, I’d also hazard a guess that running out of things for John to do was a factor as well. They kind of wrote themselves into a corner trying to make a series out of a one-note character.
Two of the new main characters in this one act as a foil to John. There’s Caine (Donnie Yen), a formerly retired assassin who deeply loves a family member, in his case a daughter instead of a wife. He’s forced back into the game by giving a marker to the wrong person, like John and Santino. There’s also Mr. Nobody (Shamir Anderson), a bounty hunter who shares John’s affinity for dogs.
We’ll Always Have Paris
Upon realizing that his plan of killing everyone isn’t going to work, John ends up invoking this old High Table tradition to win his freedom, among other things. All he has to do is show up to one spot at sunrise for a dual. The Marquis, having no interest in playing fair, triples the bounty on his head, leading to all kinds of fight scenes.
The way the word of John’s increased bounty gets out is through a black DJ whose face is totally hidden except for their lips, uses the word boppers, and plays the song “Nowehere To Run.” The most surprising part of that whole scene isn’t so much The Warriors homage, but that they didn’t find an excuse to bring David Patrick Kelly back as Charlie.
The Duel (Massive Spoilers)
The duel ends with John winning, but dying from the injuries he sustained shortly afterward. My biggest problem with this movie might be that the hero dies (for now) and I wasn’t upset by it. Yeah, I’m sure that’s not a polarizing opinion. For me, tere wasn’t this real sense of loss. John has alway been less a character and more a nearly invincible fighting machine. Unlike, say, Daniel Craig’s Bond, who they were able to humanize and add layers to.
Consequences
John Wick: Chapter 4 certainly gives you all the action you’ve come to expect from the series, though gore hounds might be disappointed that the violence of Parabelum has been toned down as were now mostly back to headshots. The film, as usual, looks beautiful, and the cast is totally top notch. Some people might also dig how they try to tell more of a story this time around. All in all, John Wick: Chapter 4 was a pretty good action movie.
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