John Wick – an old-fashioned revenge movie with no distractions

by Robert Lucas

Keanu Reeve is back from that awful movie, 47 Ronin. This time he returns as a retired hitman with one last job left to complete. So I suppose the reel question is, will John Wick be A Walk Towards The Tombstones or an Equalizer?

John Wick. Not really a name that strikes terror into the hearts of men, there is no snap or crack to it, which is exactly how the film wants it to be. The name is a summary of the man it belongs to. John Wick is a throwback, a silent assassin. After the death of his wife and the loss of his dog, he has nothing to lose, a man set on only one task, vengeance. Unbridled, unrelenting, unstoppable vengeance.

John Wick is a good old-fashioned revenge movie with no distractions.

It is a film like Leon, only without the responsibilities and the child. John Wick is like Leon if in the first 10 minutes Natalie Portman got shot in the face. John Wick is the assassin film without the moral compass to return to.

Speilberg once said “I try to invoke emotion from people and not just shoot the dog”, Derek Kolstad decided to take the easy route and just have his villains murder a dog. He also decides to make them gobby punk kids and cowards to boot, all of which makes Alfie Allen one of the most hated men I’ve seen in a long time.

The film has a cyan tint all the way through, making it look all together more cold and brooding. Best of all John Wick is human. He can get hurt

John Wick is a fun, cool little revenge action movie, it’s not ambitious and it’s not life changing but what it does do, it does well. I admire a film for that.

4/5