Burning at Both Ends
‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ John Wicks harder than any John Wick has John Wicked before.
JOhn Wick: Chapter 4
Director: Chad Stahelski • Writers: Shay Hatten, Michael Finch
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Bill Skarsgård, Donnie Yen, Ian McShane, Shamier Anderson, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rina Sawayama, Lance Reddick, Scott Adkins, Marko Zaror, Clancy Brown
USA • 2hrs 49mins
Opens Hong Kong March 23 • III
Grade: B
By the time F9 rolled around in 2021, we’d all long since forgotten that Dominic Toretto and his gang of car enthusiasts were, in movie reality, illegal drag racers that boosted VCRs (!) and CDs (!!) off trucks as a side hustle because they were really good behind the wheel of a Honda (!!!). The modest 100-minute B actioner is now a long way in the rear view of The Fast and the Furious franchise. The same could be said of John Wick: Chapter 4, which is so stylistically and thematically far from the original, 100-minute B actioner John Wick it hardly looks related to its forefather. Maybe it’s no surprise, really, considering TFatF was originally designed as a Point Break – of the immortal “I am an F. B. I. Agent!” line – knock-off intended to make Paul Walker a star. But I digress.
Chapter 4 is almost twice as long as the original, with way, way more stylistic flourishes (thanks to The Shape of Water DOP Dan Lausten and The Dark Knight Rises production designer Kevin Kavanaugh), swarthy international locations (Tokyo! New York! Berlin! Paris!) and former stunt performer-director Chad Stahelski doubling… checks notes… quadrupling down on action set pieces. Okay, yes, they are spectacular, but they become a matter of “kill your darlings”: Which one do you sacrifice at the altar of pacing? For as meticulously stunt coordinated as the attack on manager Koji Shimazu’s (Hiroyuki Sanada, mwah, chef’s kiss) Osaka Continental Hotel is, and sharply shot the throwdown between John Wick (Keanu Reeves) and German Table boss Killa (Scott Adkins) in a rain (?) drenched, neon-inflected Kreuzberg night club is, and how ingeniously white-knuckle a shoot-out around the Arc de Triomphe is, John Wick: Chapter 4 is too long, too eager and just a bit too much. Nonetheless it slips on like a comfy, bulletproof suit.
That other part of Paris
Which doesn’t make it bad, or boring, or less than entertaining for the majority of its generous runtime, but it does make it the shambling, thirsty sibling of the quadrilogy. If it’s even possible, Chapter 4 expands the mythology further, pulling in the “old ways” and dredging up rules for New York Continental manager Winston (Ian McShane, who can make the word “Aggrieved” into a threatening barb) to face consequences (a running theme) for breaking. Kudos to writers Shay Hatten (Army of the Dead) and Michael Finch (Predators) for mining more lore from Derek Kolstad’s admittedly, though elegantly thin first film. Genre filmmaking is strong with these two, but guys. You’re not interrogating contemporary masculinity and the struggle to maintain retrograde gender positions here. Can you pick up the pace?
Chapter 4 starts with Winston and his Concierge Charon (Lance Reddick, RIP) getting a spanking from ranking High Table member the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård, going full cretin) for the antics of Parabellum. The Marquis also thinks it best to eliminate John Wick for good, so he assigns company assassin Caine (Donnie Yen, no shit, blind again) to do the job. Thing is Caine doesn’t want to; John’s an old friend. But the Marquis is threatening Caine’s daughter so he buckles. Into the mix comes wild card bounty hunter Mr Nobody (Shamier Anderson, the soldier in the infuriating Apple series Invasion), who’s just in it for the cash and a 401K, but who becomes a constant, if frequently amusing, pain in the Marquis’s ass. Like John Wick, that’s it. The film bounces around the globe as John tries to avoid getting killed by his fellow hitmen, who all want to collect the US$20 million price on his head, and win his freedom. It seems he still wants out.
John Wick fans are going to want to be as blind as Caine going in; the less you know about the mechanics of the ludicrous story (though one that adheres to its own inner logic) the better. Having hit respectable cult status, the Internet’s boyfriend Reeves (a position he currently shares with Pedro Pascal) gets an even starrier cast to bounce off this time around, which is just as well. He’s 58 and he’s starting to look it (fabulously) in the intense action scenes. On top of Sanada, Yen and Skarsgård, B action stalwart Adkins, pop star Rina Sawayama as Koji’s daughter, and Clancy fuckin’ Brown join the fun: Adkins tears it up in a fat suit and an arch German accent, Sawayama makes a case for her own film as a freelance assassin who climbs huge dudes with a pair of knives, and as High Table envoy The Harbinger, Brown (The Kurgan, goddammit!) brings unwritten, instant credibility – and menace – to the character. They’re all fabulous in their own way – even Yen manages a solid line reading, something he’s studiously avoided for most of his career – and that’s Chapter 4’s main problem. Who goes?
And believe me, something’s gotta go. In aiming high and getting ambitious (the budget has gone from US$20 to $100 in three films and it starts with a Lawrence of Arabia reference), Stahelski & Co. haven’t figured out when enough is enough. As technically boggling as the overhead (videogame-ish) church shoot-out is, do we need it to be so long? Once you see the clever new explodo-rifle do we need to see it a 20th time? The dance across the world’s most psychotic roundabout is incredible, yes, but how many times does someone getting hit by a car conjure an “Oh, damn!” before it gets tired? Despite a third act bit of snark directed at the Marquis, does Mr Nobody bring anything to the story – dog excepted? He does not. Tumbling down the stairs is hilarious (you’ll see). Once. Where do you trim the fat? Excess is John Wick’s raison d’être, and without the OTT violence and mayhem and knotty mythology (and stunt work) it would lose its charm, but it’s a balancing act that’s getting harder and harder to maintain as time goes by. It hasn’t spiralled down into F9 territory just yet, mostly because Reeves could never be as self-serious as Vin Diesel, but Chapter 4 could be an inflection point if John Wick: Chapter 5 happens. Assuming there’s anyone left to kill. — DEK
underrated Keanu? Yes, Please
River’s Edge (1986), d: Tim Hunter
Reeves elevates “disaffected teen” in his first major role as one among a group of friends that react… poorly to the death of a pal at the hands of another.
Much Ado About Nothing (1993), d: Kenneth Branagh
Reeves did Shakespeare in Toronto years before this and he’s cool as the villainous Don John. Denzel Washington co-stars. The hot factor is stratospheric.
A Scanner Darkly (2006), d: Richard Linklater
Linklater’s hypnotic rotoscope adaptation of PKD’s fable about a drug-addled, politically nightmareish America also stars Iron Man and Joyce Byers.