Since this is the last day for my look at action films, I’ve decided to pick the one that I haven’t had a chance to look at back when it was released in 2014. I’ve been wanting to see the sequels and just recently I have bought the individual Blu-Rays. John Wick is what I believe to be the best action films of the 2010s. It started a series that is still in development and revitalized Keanu Reeves’ career with much appreciation.
1. Never Mess with a Man’s Dog
When we first see John, he’s bloodied and limping. The rest of the film acts like a flashback, we learn that his wife had passed away. She has gifted him a car and a new Beagle named Daisy. Wick slowly starts to love the dog. From there, masked intruders barge into his house and beat him up. Including doing the awful act of killing his dog.
As John wakes up from being knocked out, he vows revenge. Meanwhile, the Russian mobster Viggo chastises his son for killing and stealing Wick’s dog and car, saying that he will find him. The whole movie after the inciting moment is a revenge film. Since John is only looking for payback after having the final memories of his wife is stolen and murdered.
Aside from that, John is a great marksman. When he is confronted with Viggo’s men, he knows how to take cover and to really adjust on the fly. It’s from there that we learn that Wick used to be an assassin that was employed by Viggo. When John goes to New York City he knows a lot of people from his past. Like, he was probably that good in his profession that it made an impact on them.
For as much as he’s a good shooter, he takes the damage every now and then. This is the needed detail that every director who does an action movie has to have for a protagonist to be human instead of an overpowered joe with a weapon. Having Wick get shot or stabbed, or just strangled gives him more depth since he is easy to level with when he gets shot and he has to be stitched back together. Nine times out of ten, the use of this tiny detail will elevate a standard action movie to a great action movie.
2. Gun Action
Now, of course when you watch or heard of this film, it is the action that’s the star. Specifically, the tight gun choreography. To be more in depth with the action is that it’s mostly drawn out with the shots that we see in John’s perspective. In context with the action films from that time is that most of the action was using shaky camera. The point of using that technique is to make the audience be in the action.
Although sometimes a standard action movie would overuse it and the action would be unreadable and hard to follow. In John Wick, the action is played out with quick edits and long takes of the action. It’s refreshing since, the action is engaging and easy to read since when John is being outmatched, the camera still tracks him when he adjusts on the fly. In other words, the action in John Wick has a specific name, Gun-Fu.
As far as blood goes, its nowhere near as exploitive as a Tarantino film. Where a simple gunshot would yield an arm loss or a body becoming a hose squirting blood like a faucet. John Wick is grounded with its approach that it never feels exploitive or trying to hard to be cool in the overall action. It’s played straight with what’s going on and it works so well.
3. Overall
Another short review, but I can’t stress that I really love this movie. It’s an appropriate way of closing out my introspection of action movies from 60 years and to see what changed. The recurring thing is to have the character be relatable. The action is good and needs to have a tight story to go along with it. John Wick is a celebration of action movies and I’m glad I finally watched it.
John Wick gets a five out of five.
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