Movie Review: 'John Wick'
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Generic action heroes can't hold a candle to John Wick.
That's because the title hero of the one-dimensional revenge melodrama John Wick is a lethal assassin who couldn't miss a shot if his life depended on it -- which it certainly does.
Most of his shooting is done from very close range, true. ut if there's a bad guy within earshot and John Wick has at least one eye open, any bullet he lets fly will find its target.
Why bother aiming when a bull's-eye is the only possible outcome?
To call John Wick formulaic as a tale of violent retribution by a hitman whose one-syllable name strikes fear in his enemies is to state the obvious and perhaps even understate the case. I t's a hyper-violent action thriller starring Keanu Reeves.
Chad Stahelski used to be Keanu Reeves' stunt double. He's now his director, an uncommon Hollywood progression. With veteran stunt coordinator David Leitch as his producer.
Reeves stars as the stoic, efficient title character, a retired, recently widowed hitman whose late wife, played by Bridget Moynihan, just passed away following a lengthy illness.
But she managed to reach back for him from beyond the grave by arranging for him to receive a posthumous gift: a puppy named Daisy.
Then the vindictive Iosef (Alfie Allen) -- the son of Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist), the Russian crime boss Wick used to work for -- breaks into Wick's house along with two other thugs, beats him up, steals his car, and brutally kills Daisy.
Feeling that he has now lost everything and everyone he cares about, the enraged Wick vows revenge, turns his back on his quiet life, comes out of retirement as an unstoppable murder machine, jumps back into action, and goes on a killing spree through the underworld.
And while Wick pursues his dog's killer, Viggo engages two contract killers and former Wick colleagues, played by Willem Dafoe and Adrianne Palicki, to stamp out Wick.
The supporting cast also includes John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, Lane Reddick, and Dean Winters.
The body count is astronomical, to some extent because of the protagonist's uncanny (not to say preposterous) ability to hit everything and everyone he even considers shooting at.
And with all the shooting and killing and dying going on, aren't there any police at all in the vicinity? Not a one?
It's the stunt work and fight choreography that stand out in first-timer Stahelski's debut in the director's chair, as you might expect. But he's working from a strangely humorless screenplay by Derek Kolstad that ignores substance almost completely and leaves the style concerns to the action sequences.
And two hours is a long stretch of nothing but carnage.
Reeves not only did most of his own stunts, but also gets to show off his considerable martial arts skills. In following up Man of Tai Chi and 47 Ronin with John Wick, on which he also serves as an executive producer, he further validates his action star credentials. But let's just say that Point Break and Speed and Devil's Advocate and Something's Gotta Give and even the Matrix trilogy seem a long time ago.
Not that charismatic Reeves can't handle the film's dramatic scenes: he's fine within or without the action component.
But perhaps, like Liam Neeson, Denzel Washington, Pierce Brosnan, or Tom Cruise, he's just flirting with the lure of a mid-career action franchise.
So we'll snuff out 2 stars out of 4 for this bloodbath of an action vehicle. Would that John Wick flew as straight as all those bullets.
