Movie review 'John Wick': A battlefield of revenge and more revenge

Director: Chad Stahelski

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Willem Dafoe

Rating: 3 stars

Chad Stahelski, an ace stunt director in Hollywood, makes his directorial debut with an actor whose stunt double he has played in the Matrix trilogy. It is clear that Stahelski is in awe of his Neo aka Keanu Reeves and uses the film to bring the 50-year-old actor back in the action oeuvre.

But all his screen time doesn’t help the viewers much, especially since Reeves has a very limited palette of emotions to offer, his charming looks notwithstanding.

The plot of John Wick is as painfully simple as most action flicks. The eponymous character was a former assassin (Reeves) who retires once he finds love and settles for the ho-hum life of romance and marriage.

Then his wife (Moynahan) takes ill and he spends much of his time looking after her and being by her side as her health slips for the worse.

His dead wife planned for a posthumous present in the form of Daisy, a puppy, which she hopes will help her husband cope with her loss.

That puppy is killed by a bunch of thugs, headed by the son of Wick’s former boss and that’s really all it takes for Wick to lose his Reeves-patented Zen-like calm.

A former hitman is not happy about his doggie getting bumped off and car stolen from him, and so the rest of the film becomes a bloody battlefield of revenge and more revenge.

You can easily dismiss this blue-green-toned film as yet another mindless film with dishy yet expressionless actor at the helm of affairs. Sounds like a lot of those action flicks with jocks and Megan Fox replicas?

John Wick is different because Stahelski makes the action sequences seem like vignettes from a painting that tells one long tale. The violence is almost artistic and so fluid that it makes an otherwise mindless film seem like it has some sense of purpose. Reeves really brings bare minimum to the table and is probably on borrowed time with ardent fans.

It’s in the choice of smaller characters that Stahelski makes interesting choices. With Dafoe playing Wick’s former-mentor-turned-assassin-turned-friend, Stahelski offers some gravitas in the acting department. Nyqvist is Wick’s adversary in the film and really puts out a strong performance in very limited screen time.

Stahelski clearly loves Reeves and uses his genial face and its attempts at brooding to make us sympathise with the titular character. Which we do, by the way, only till we’re truly blown away by the action.

The film is slick and one must give credit where it’s due. The technical aspects stand out as pure genius and makes one feel like they’re a part of one of those action RPGs of the 90s. But sadly, showcasing Reeves as the protagonist has done little for the film and littler for the actor.

In the process of making him the hero of the thriller, Stahelski has inadvertently put on public display the limitations of the actor.

Watch the trailer here: