First and foremost, welcome back Keanu. We’ve missed you.  John Wick Is a tremendous comeback for Reeves, his portrayal of the titular character the best performance he’s had since The Matrix, a film now well over a decade old. Follow this up with an intriguing world, some messed up antagonists (they kill a puppy!) ,gunplay filled action that rivals the genres best, and a sense of style that’s so often absent from the cookie cutter crap Hollywood normally doles out, and you have a real winner of a movie, and the best action film of the year.

                

John Wick’s tale is a simple one, but the simplicity adds rawness to the story, rather than take away from it. Wick is a retired hitman, living the good life with his beloved wife after breaking clean from his Russian employer’s years ago. The fates however, apparently don’t look too kindly on former contract killers, giving his wife a fatal disease and leaving John in despair. The only thing he has left is his beloved dog, Daisy, a gift from his wife before her passing, so he’d have something else to care for in her absence.

                

This comes crashing down when the son of his former employer, a Russian penthouse oaf living on his gangster daddy’s money, breaks into his house, steals his car, and murders Daisy, leaving the poor animal in a pool of blood at her masters feet.  It doesn’t take long for Wick to find out what happened and who’s responsible, and after smashing his way through a concrete floor with a sledgehammer, retrieves his guns. Its game time.

               

Keanu is often picked on for his wooden acting and lack of emotions, but it fits the role of John Wick like a glove.  The Russian gangsters call him “Boogeyman” a creature that, like Wick, is a terrifying presence, the very name striking bone chilling chords of fear. If Wick wants you dead, you die.  Reeves isn’t the most physically intimidating man, lacking the muscles that rack roided up monsters like Sylvester Stallone and Dwayne Johnson, but in every one of his scenes, a sense of intimidation flows out of him turning a somewhat skinny, average looking middle aged man into something else entirely.

               

Asides from Keanu himself, the supporting cast is solid, if not exemplary. The Russian baddies do a good job of being Russian and bad, but only their leader Viggo, played by Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist, stands out in the crowd. Unfortunately he suffers what I like to call “Bond-ism.” Bond-ism is a fatal disease that affects many villains in cinema, where they have the hero trapped, but rather than, say, shoot them in the head, they just monologue a bit until the hero has the chance to escape and promptly kill them.

               

Despite Viggos unfortunate condition, he’s an interesting villain, and more unique than your average greasy, overweight mob leader.  Wick was a hitman for him in past times, the best Viggo ever employed and the russian truly wishes him no harm. It’s only with great reluctance (and after giving a hefty beating to his son, the idiot who killed Wicks dog to begin with) that Viggo sends his men after him only to grow more and more worried as they start to die. It’s a more interesting motivation than the generic “greed” or “betterment of the world” that many similar villains follow.

               

The world of John Wick is an interesting playground for the action to unfold. The assassins are criminals, but honorable ones with a strict code of ethics. The most prominent showcase of this is The Continental, a hotel that caters for assassins as a safe house and lounge, where “business” is forbidden. These services and others such as body disposal, weapon drops, etc. are paid for with golden coins, obtained for completing successful jobs. The story is kept solely on Wick throughout though, leaving some of the world feel a bit unexplored. It’s a fascinating idea, and one I’d love to see explored further in the future.

               

Of course, the defining segment of any action movie is the action and on this front John Wick delivers in spades.  Wick isn’t the biggest man, but with a combination of grappling and throws along with a Robo-Cop level of accuracy with a gun, he takes out entire complexes with ease. The downside to all this consistently great action is the climax doesn’t feel all that climatic. It’s not bad per se, but early scenes of Wick shooting his way through a sauna and jumping from car to car blowing out windshields with a shotgun simply outclass it, leaving it an underwhelming conclusion to an otherwise great film.

               

If John Wick taught me anything, it’s never mess around with another man’s puppy. A great protagonist, interesting villain, and some of the year’s best set pieces in an interesting world make John Wick a standout and an excellent return to form for the now 50(!) year old Reeves. Whether he’ll ever recover the glory days of The Matrix I don’t know, but this is a great step in the right direction.

 

*** 4 Out of 5 Stars **