Keanu’s short fuse leads to action porn

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Published Dec 19, 2014

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JOHN WICK

DIRECTOR: Chad Stahelski

CAST Keanu Reeves, Micheal Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Ian McShane and Willem Dafoe

CLASSIFICATION: 16LV

RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes

RATING: ***

 

 

 

KEANU Reeves (pictured) in a black suit, kicking ass and not bothering to take names. What more do you want from a revenge flick? His latest film, John Wick, is stylishly filmed, relishing as much in its violence as its B-grade sensibility – there is a tongue-in- cheek feel to the otherwise technically proficient action sequences and, yep, scope for a sequel.

Reeves is the eponymous character who hurtles out of his self-imposed retirement from being a paid assassin, when some idiot kills his dog and steals his car.

Said idiot, played by Theon Greyjoy, or rather Alfie Allen, is Iosef Tarasov, entitled but otherwise dimwitted son of Russian mob boss Viggo Tarasov (Nyqvist).

While daddy tries hard to save the idiot, giving rise to much of the action that keeps you watching, no one can stand in the way of the killing machine that is John Wick.

Stahelski makes his directorial debut with this action flick – up to this point he has made his name as Reeves’ stunt double on films like The Matrix.

The feature is filled with precision driving, well choreo-graphed hand-to-hand combat sequences and beautifully framed and filmed aerial shots of New York City. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela (Max Payne, A Good Day to Die Hard) does the most to differentiate between the two different states of the main character – at home in retired mode has a static, old-school filmic quality, while out in the city shooting people is non-stop, hand-held with a mostly steely grey colour palette.

The cast do not have much script direction to work with – it is mostly a case of point and shoot or run away. Dialogue is trite and the plot is obvious, but the action never lets up once it gets going.

Somehow Reeves manages to keep a straight face, even when so much of what is happening around him seems to be about the film not taking itself seriously at all. Characters pop up with the weirdest of mannerisms and accents and and yet there is very little by way of character growth for anyone.

Reeves’ usual po-faced look totally works a treat here, while Nyqvist, Dafoe and McShane relish their bad guy status.

Revenge flicks are such a standard film trope that it is difficult to get the audience to really care about the character. All we want the person in question to do is pick up the gun and start shooting already so we can learn how to play the video game. Where this film, surprisingly, actually works is by killing off the really cute puppy – today’s jaundiced voyeurs, fed on a steady diet of e.tv late night specials featuring Bruce Willis et al are unable to not care about such violence visited on such utter cuteness.

So, we are just as incensed as John Wick about the senseless brutality and egg him on to shoot the idiot already. And, just like that, suddenly it is a dark, blood-slicked bit of action porn with its own visual flavour. Entertaining in its own violently sick way.

If you liked The Equaliser or Max Payne, you will like this.

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