Director: Chad Stahelski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Bill Skarsgård, Donnie Yen, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, and others
Where to watch: In cinemas
Runtime: 2 hours 49 minutes
Rating: 4 stars
The most dreadful hitman, the Baba Yagga of the crime mafia, Johnathan 'John' Wick, is back to defeat the High Table and earn his freedom. A new overlord, the senior member of the High Table, Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård), makes his path difficult and makes John the most wanted man alive, hunted by hoards of assassins.
Director Chad Stahelski has turned John Wick into a pop-culture icon, as he knows the expectations from the series and makes sure to deliver them. John Wick 4 is the longest film of the series, and so far, it is the best action film of the year. Team JW - Chad, Keanu, Donnie, and Ian McShane - have saved it best for the last.
The film opens up with a vengeful John Wick (Keanu Reeves) punching a wooden plank hard multiple times, echoing his urge to earn his freedom and bring down the High Table. The Bowery King (Lawrence Fishburne) walks in from the dark with Wick's ballistic suit in his hands, and we know we are in for a crazy ride.
The Marquis aims to kill John Wick. Thus, he fires Winston Scott (Ian McShane) from as the manager of The Continental, and he blows away the hotel. Gramont even joins the alliance with Wick's blind hitman friend Donnie Yen and forces him to help kill John. Winston meets John and gives him a solution to earn his freedom and take revenge by defeating Gramont in a duel. The quest for John Wick's revenge is filled with multiple single-take action sequences, lots of killing (I mean, a lot of killing) and a hell-lot of dead bodies. You may have to have rewatches to ascertain the body count.
Be it hand-to-hand combat, pistol-fight, katanas, nunchaku, or even grenade launchers, John Wick unleashes his fury and uses every weapon at hand to kill anyone who comes in his way. His love for four-legged animals remains constant, and it helps him turn his foe, Mr Nobody (Shamier Anderson), into a friend. From the hotel museum, the nightclub, or the busy street of Avenue des Champs- Élysées, Wick can turn any place into a battleground.
JW4 belongs to Keanu Reeves as far as performances are concerned. This is his best performance in the series. He will be a strong contender as 'Action Star' of the year. His role has substantial emotional backing, and fans of Wick will become emotional by the end. Apart from Donnie Yen, Ian McShane, and Lawrence Fishburne, new entrants Bill Skarsgård and Shamier Anderson will impress you.
Action remains the driving force of the series, Stahleski makes it four times more difficult for the protagonist, upping the ante. The Osaka Continental fight sequence and the Car-Fu sequence, where John drifts a Mustang in a busy street in Paris fighting dozens of gunmen are the highlights of the film. When John Wick falls from the long stairs of the Dome of Sacre-Coeur in the fistfight, you will feel his pain.
However, there are shortcomings too. Unlike the original John Wick, you might not feel as emotional or moved by John's journey until the climax. Also, the long action scenes make you believe as if you're watching a survival video game where new waves of baddies arrive every few minutes, only for the hero to kill them all to survive.
Having said that John Wick 4 is a treat for the series' die-hard fans, go savour it! Produced by Lionsgate, John Wick 4 will release in cinemas on March 24.
