I’m a sucker for big, bombastic action movies. Put a middle-aged actor in a stoic role, give them a bunch of weapons, toss in a few explosions, and I’m there. Keanu Reeves has always been excellent in action movies—and in movies in general; that man can act—and the John Wick series is no different. Only time will tell, but John Wick: Chapter 4 may prove to be my favorite of the bunch. It’s certainly one of the best.
Poor John Wick (Reeves) has had a helluva six months (the first three movies are set over a week and a half, while several months pass between three and four). He lost his wife, his dog was killed, and his house was blown up. And he got sucked back into the life of assassins and baddies that he barely squeezed himself out of. He has few allies, and is losing more every day. With nothing left but a demand to be free, John takes on the High Table, the mysterious, omnipotent organization who rule the hitman world like gods. They put forth the Marquis (Bill Skarsgård), a brutal French aristocrat who revels in causing as much pain as possible, to run the show. With the bounty on his head ramping up and two new top assassins coming after him, the relentless Tracker (Shamier Anderson) and fellow “I was out until they pulled me back in” badass Caine (Donnie Yen), surviving the night will be the hardest thing he’s ever done. And then he still has to survive a duel with the Marquis. Cue explosions.
I think what I appreciate the most about this series, particularly Chapter 4, is how it doesn’t assume each sequel has to be bigger and badder than the previous. Sure, the set pieces here are wilder than in the first movie, but the heart and focus remain the same. If anything, the craft gets tighter and the skills more honed. Everyone behind and in front of the camera knows exactly what they’re doing. The stakes are the same as they’ve always been: John just wants to be left alone.
There’s something so primal about the John Wick series. They strike the balance of taking the genre seriously without overinflating their own sense of importance. The body count is staggering to the point of unbelievable. At the rate John goes through goons, I’m surprised the High Table has any staff left on the payroll. Bullets and fists fly faster than the viewer can keep track, but it’s all so tightly choreographed that somehow it still makes sense in the aftermath. Director Chad Stahelski started in filmmaking doing stunt work before moving up to action design and fight choreography, and all that skill is on display in Chapter 4. There are plenty of callbacks to cool action scenes from previous installments as well as all new scenes that will blow your mind.
The fight choreography paired with Dan Laustsen’s cinematography veers from competent craft-making to astonishing art. The entire Paris sequence is thrilling, and the audience I saw the movie with were shouting and cheering the whole way through. The two scenes shot largely from above and with the camera dancing around as John slaughters his way through low-level thugs for hire were absolutely stunning. The scene in the abandoned Parisian mansion was so incredible that when it ended I realized I was literally on the edge of my seat. Add to that the evocative use of lighting, from the flashes of neon to nighttime and shadowy scenes where you can still clearly see what’s happening without having to squint, and the viewing experience is a treat. The movie does a fantastic job of blending CGI, VFX, practical effects, and stunt work. In one fight scene set during rush hour traffic going around the Arc de Triomphe, John is constantly dodging goons, guns, and automobiles, but the cinematography and lighting are so crisp and the choreography so finely tuned that it flows seamlessly. You never have the feeling like you can’t tell what’s happening because of messy CGI or muddy lighting.
Of course, it helps to not think about how the goons are this universe’s version of stormtroopers in that you could give them an endless supply of ammo and position them five feet away from John and they’d still miss. Most of the high level assassins have bullet proof suits, which works until all these big, tough dudes have to run around with their jackets pulled up over their heads to protect from headshots. It looks ridiculous, and the movie just leans right on into it.
The main reason these movies work, however, are the actors. Reeves, Ian McShane (as Winston), Laurence Fishburne (as the Bowery King), and Lance Riddick (as Charon, *sobs uncontrollably*) put in hit after hit. The fourth installment also introduces longtime working actors Clancy Brown as the Harbinger, Hiroyuki Sanada as Shimazu, and Yen. These are working actors dedicated to their craft. No flair, no frippery. Don’t sleep on Shamier Anderson (Tracker) and Rina Sawayama (Akira), either. I hope we see their characters again in Chapter 5. If Hollywood were smart, their phones would be ringing off the hook with casting offers.
Reeves imbues John with depth and emotion, even if on the surface he seems taciturn and glowering. Other action movie actors would be tempted to ham it up, slather on the sarcasm, or play John like a good man in a bad situation. Reeves lets John be John, lets him be as violent as the story needs him to be while also showing humanity. John is (or at least aspires to be) a loving husband, something Reeves always keeps at the center of his performance.
If I had to change anything about Chapter 4, it would be the fatsuit. There is absolutely no reason to have Scott Adkins in a fatsuit except to mock fat people. Adkins’ Killa is sweaty and crass, a grotesque goblin of a man, of which his fatness is used as a reason to further despise him. His fatness is a literal representation of his gluttony and greed. They even have him repeatedly sucking on an inhaler (Hollywood, I’m begging you to learn how asthma works). It’s tempting to say they were showing a fat man with strength and power, but that’s immediately undercut by having him constantly falling with his ass toward the camera, a position that not even the faceless cannon fodder are reduced to. They could have cast a larger actor in this role if they really cared about depicting a variety of body types. Or they could have simply had Adkins not be in a fatsuit. But no, this was just another chance to spit on fat people. It’s a truly disappointing turn for an otherwise thrilling movie.
I’ll say this much about the long runtime for John Wick Chapter 4: I didn’t even notice it. I was hooked from the first punch. It was nonstop and full throttle. It could’ve been thirty minutes longer and I wouldn’t have minded. We may still get a fifth movie, but if this is where we bid farewell to Baba Yaga, at least he went out on a high.
Alex Brown is a Hugo-nominated and Ignyte award-winning critic who writes about speculative fiction, librarianship, and Black history. Find them on twitter (@QueenOfRats), instagram (@bookjockeyalex), and their blog (bookjockeyalex.com).
See I actually found the big guy in Germany genuinly frightening with his size and power, much like Kingpin. I would NOT want to get punched repeatedly by a man that large.
And there were sumo wrestler sized guards at the Continental Osaka who did a decent job at fighting during the very brief time we see them do it. I actually wanted to see more of those two big guys tear it up
You are right, the entire sequence of fight set pieces in Paris were just absolutely wild, such an amazing blend of cinemetography, choreography, special effects, practical effects.
Two things that bothered me, one minor one major.
The minor one is I wish they would have background characters fully commit to just not caring about the fighting happening around them. The dancers in the German club, either have them dance or have them stop and be alarmed, but this 75% of them not caring and 25% of them being scared just throws me off. Same with the drivers at the Arc De Triumph. Either have folks keep driving or have them stop. In both cases the background characters decided when the scene was over when everyone stopped to acknowledge the killing happening next to them but I dont think this was necessary to indicate when the scene was over. Either John kills everyone and leaves or he doesnt and runs away.
The major issue I had was in Osaka with the bullet proof plate mail. Those guys were recoiling from taking shots to their very thick full body armor, which makes sense. At close range a spray of bullets will knock grown men back unless the armor is so thick they can barely move and there’s some cushion on the inside to adjust for recoil. But then John and others are wearing suits fashioned like bullet proof vests and they can just stand there and got shot all day in the suit without any recourse. I think make it consistent, either the armor is so advanced that there’s no recoil (pure fantasy) or incorporate John getting knocked back when taking direct hits and so he has to be more strategic about avoid getting shot
Still, I give this movie an 8/10!
I thought the way they handled the german ganster was pretty great. They established the expectation of an idle guy who’s not a threat in his own person but only because of the authority he holds and the hard men willing to kill on his orders (the same archetype that Jabba the Hutt embodied in the extreme), but then he survives getting his throat cut (with a playing card, if I interpreted it correctly) and shrugs off all kinds of other wounds because of the layers of fat. It plays into the very real practice that some warrior sub-cultures followed of cultivating fat to help protect against injury, while at the same time making it a complete (and rather terrifying) surprise when he starts beating up John in hand-to-hand combat.
The ending was solid. It offered a definitive end to the franchise if they want it to, while having just enough ambiguity that they could continue the primary story if they so decide. There were also several key elements that would be easy to spin off into new story arcs (as they are doing with The Ballerina).
So many productions get Orthodox Christianity completely wrong, usually as “Latin Catholics but kind of not.” I really appreciated that John’s “sister” made the sign of the cross correctly (right finger positions, right directions), and the costuming for the clergy was great. I’m not sure if Belorussian Orthodox churches use pews or not (as I understand it pews are mostly a Greek Orthodox thing and only in America). I also didn’t catch if there were icon screens between the people and the altar (there should be some kind of barrier, though it can often look very different in different traditions).
The suits are hilarious, but my brother and I started joking about depleted uranium arrow heads once the archers started punching arrows through the bulletproof suit coats
The aerial shot inside the building with the dragon breath shotguns was one of the best action sequences on film. More productions need to to that kind of thing. One of the best battle scenes in cinema is in the 2014 Hercules when they show a top-down view of an infantry square resisting cavalry and human wave attacks, and for much the same reason as the JW4 sequence worked: you could see people moving, see the action, and interpret everything clearly. It gives you a firm idea of positioning, terrain, and the flow of the action. I think it was a single cut, too (or a simulation of one), which makes it even more impressive.
I admit that I was kind of disappointed that the stairway sequence wasn’t a single cut.
I think this Chapter was the worst of all. %70 of the movie is like watching a video game where tens (if not hundreds) of bot players run towards JohnW and he keeps killing them in different positions and with varying tools&weapons while trying to reach the boss character to kill. It is OK for a PS5 game but not OK for a movie. Producers must have the feeling that in every chapter JohnW should kill more people than in the chapter before. This is not how I rate the success of a movie. Ch1 was epic, Ch2 was good, Ch3 was OK but Ch4 was terrible.
Eh. I only watched the first one. IMHO, a by-the-number action movie like any other, with some good fights. I found the Baba Yaga thing particularly funny, since Baba Yaga is, you know, an old lady who lives in a hut. With chicken legs.
Started watching the second one, got to the recidivist Baba Yaga monolog (what kind of Russians don’t know their own folklore? And what about the chicken legs?) and stopped for good.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. As the credit rolled, I thought, “Man, Michael Bay could learn a thing or two from this guy.”
I thought it was maybe twenty minutes too long, but the (double click to reveal)shootout on the Montmartre Steps, with John facing a literal uphill battle, was filmed in absolutely brilliant fashion.