Directed by:
Chad StahelskiCinematography:
Dan LaustsenCast:
Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Rina Sawayama, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Scott Adkins (more)VOD (1)
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John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uncovers a path to defeating The High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes. (Nordisk Film Fin.)
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Reviews (15)
Nearly ten years of Wick's revenge for his killed dog and destroyed car have flown by. The huge mythology revolving around the rules and the code of assassins slowly swells, but as glue for fantastic action scenes it is enough. As a result, Keanu Reeves will not be remembered as Neo, but as the "loving husband" of John Wick. The climactic sequences at the Arc de Triomphe and the Osaka Massacre will one day be in the textbooks. The scenes with my favourite nunchucks really put a smile on my face. Donnie Yen relishes Cain to the full, and Reddick's last scene in the film gives me chills. Awesome.
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Despite a bit of recycling, Chapter 4 is still an entertaining action blockbuster without a single dull moment in its nearly three-hour runtime. And it has the best ending of all the films in the franchise. Bill Skarsgård is an exemplary bourgeois bad guy and Donnie Yen plays the franchise’s first supporting character who is a match for Wick and is more than just a one-dimensional villain. The overhead shots in the rooms are fantastic, but I wouldn’t have borrowed the wrong-way ride on the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris from Mission: Impossible – Fallout, because this equally highly rated franchise has no need for that. The higher degree of detached humor (radio hits from the Eiffel Tower, the long fall down the stairs) together with the outsized nature of everything was more than pleasing. Of course, the production design is again outstanding. I hope we will see the young Japanese actress Rina Sawayama in the fifth John Wick.
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The best action franchise ever, now it is clear. But the fourth entry is three hours long? Of course, every action scene lasts like thirty minutes, and there are plenty of them. I've never really seen anything like it, let alone in the cinema, and I don't think I ever will again, unless they make Chapter 5. Chad Stahelski uses everything he has taught himself and John Wick in previous episodes, putting new obstacles in his path and forcing him to find new solutions. But most important of all, the story that connects the horribly grotesque slaughter is not stupid. The opening reference to Lawrence of Arabia is more of a joke, but after a while we get to the "Leone-like" clockwork and a sense that although the bad guys will die by the hundreds again, it will end up in a one-on-one duel like in a western. John Wick works his way up to it in a Bond-like globetrotting way, and in the interesting company of assassins who, though at his throat, are so well written and motivated that you actually root for them too. The story also puts a lot of emphasis on different forms of friendship, and I like that. If this film is the end of Wick's journey, he couldn't have asked for a better ending.
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In the context of the action genre, John Wick: Chapter 4 is polished perfection. This carefully constructed gourmet treat manages to simultaneously evoke physically intense reactions and pure pleasure from the creativity and inventiveness of its choreography. The moment when Wick puts the nun-chucks around his neck brings you to the realisation that you have just witnessed perfection – it’s something like the first time you knowingly gaze at a van Gogh painting or let the music of Bach encompass you, or see The Rock raise an eyebrow. As foolish and faithless as I am, I momentarily doubted whether the filmmakers had anything else up their sleeve after that. But when the camera soars over the hero wielding a shotgun with incendiary rounds, my head exploded. This is where the wheat gets separated from the chaff. The fourth John Wick is a grandiose eruption of genius, talent and enlightenment. At the same time, its creators pay tribute to the entire previous tradition of cinematic martial arts and the greats of the genre – from Bruce Lee and Sammo Hung to Zatoichi. But by avoiding shallow imitation and fanboyish references, they set a benchmark based on their role models and predecessors that they want to surpass, though not arrogantly, but lovingly and with respect. Keanu Reeves remains a tremendous asset to the franchise, which is primarily thanks to his years of levelling up and his willingness to learn new things. Choreographers thus get an unprecedentedly malleable actor with whom they can vary the skills that he has already mastered while also setting new challenges for him. The same is true of the other renowned actors in the film. Other spectacular ensemble action movies of the past – e.g. The Expendables and The Fast and the Furious – got by with merely pitting stars against each other in the manner of wrestling exhibitions and letting them show off their iconic moves from other movies. In contrast to that, Stahelski’s team takes Hiroyuki Sanada, Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Marko Zaror and Shamier Anderson and transforms each of them into a delightfully distinctive character and gives them space to exploit their physical strengths, build on a classic tradition or icon and even go nuts with their acting. In addition to that, Chapter 4 makes absolutely magnificent use of the franchise’s own comic-bookishly overwrought world with its contrasting colour palette, weapons sommelier, style fetishes and surreally idealised clichés. This Downton Abbey with kung-fu and guns has roots embedded in the impassioned essences of genre flicks, ranging from the melancholic crime dramas of Jean-Pierre Melville through John Woo’s heroic bloodshed movies and the samurai dramas of Masaki Kobayashi to the postmodern cool of Cowboy Bebop. John Wick: Chapter 4 thus steers well clear of boastful, Tarantino-style eclectic exhibitionism. Like a true master of the martial arts, it humbly acknowledges its own masters, whose brilliance led it to establish a new pinnacle of the action genre.
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Chad Stahelski may have bitten off more than he can chew when he tries to build a world and mythology around John Wick, because he's not very good at it. But all those clumsy attempts at worldbuilding are forgivable when it comes to action. The fourth John Wick is crammed with great shootouts and fights that once again show Hollywood that the action genre is far from having the last word, and that when the right people get their hands on it, the result is breathtaking, and you don't even notice that it's three hours long. In terms of action, John Wick stands at the absolute cinematic pinnacle. It may handle the in-between scenes a lot worse, but nobody goes to the movies to see this franchise for that filler anyway.
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