“In memory of Lance Reddick.”
John Wick: Chapter 4 is a triumph. In an era where most American action films look and feel AI-generated and/or have adopted the rapid editing techniques of the Bourne franchise to disastrous effects, director Chad Stahelski, star Keanu Reeves and cinematographer Dan Laustsen show Hollywood how it’s done. Frenetically paced and masterfully executed, John Wick: Chapter 4 may be one of the greatest action movies ever made.
There’s no denying that this franchise took us all by surprise. I vividly remember saying that 2014’s John Wick looked lame from its first look of a badly retouched photoshop picture of Reeves with a bazooka. How wrong I was. Directors David Leitch and Stahelski kept the plot minimal to focus on one incredibly crafted action sequence after the other. The sequels weren’t as strong on the story front, as the first John Wick but contained equal amounts of visually arresting action that pushed the boundaries of the genre in an exciting direction.
The fourth chapter similarly also contains a simple premise. John Wick (Reeves) is on the run from the High Table after the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. One of the High-Ranking members of the High Table, the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård), enlists Caine (Donnie Yen) and Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson) to kill Wick before a duel set to take place at sunrise could ensure Wick’s freedom and the restoration of Winston’s (Ian McShane) position as general manager of The New York Continental Hotel, one of the many safe havens for assassins around the world.
Stahelski knows that audiences aren’t watching John Wick for the plot. That’s why he dumps all the exposition in the first twenty minutes. After that, he sends the film to Japan, where the movie kicks into gear. John is seeking the help of Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada), the manager of the Osaka Continental Hotel. The Marquis’ right-hand man, Chidi (Marko Zaror), appears alongside Mr. Nobody, and a fight ensues. Shimazu and his daughter, Akira (Rina Sawayama), help Wick escape. It’s the film’s first significant action set piece and sets the stage for what’s to come: long (the Japan fight lasts about thirty minutes, and its Paris-set climax lasts roughly an hour), intricately staged and immaculately shot action sequences whose choreography is not only clear in its viciousness but also incredibly playful.
Reeves is in top form as Wick. The character barely has any lines throughout the film, but instead acts with his body. The relentless carnage Stahelski throws at Wick is enough for the audience to understand his predicament. At 58, Reeves doesn’t shy away from showing his vulnerabilities as a frailer action star than when he starred in Speed or The Matrix trilogy. His fighting style is rougher and more erratic, instead of being more precise and calculated like in the first John Wick.
There are far too many enemies for Wick to fight on his own. His quick wit and sense of improvisation allow him to adapt to any environment. Some will immediately compare this to how Jackie Chan approached action. Still, Reeves’ style aligns more with Buster Keaton, emphasizing slapstick gun-fu choreographies. Granted, there is an insanely bloody one-on-one fight between Wick and Killa (Scott Adkins, doing his best impression of Gert Fröbe in Goldfinger). Yet, Stahelski still manages to add flourishes of slapstick comedy when the characters fall down the stairs or can’t get back up after they slip on a puddle of water.
The balance between humor and catharsis works brilliantly, particularly during a scene where Wick fights off a group of henchmen with a gun firing “dragon-breath” bullets. The sequence is presented through an overhead tracking shot and deftly blends high-stakes thrills and Stahelski’s darkly funny sense of humor. I won’t dare spoil what those “dragon-breath” bullets do, but you get the idea. In a recent interview, Laustsen recalled one of his first conversations with Stahelski while working on John Wick: Chapter 2. He wanted the film’s visual style to be in line with Bernardo Bertolucci’s oeuvre, making it far more opulent and visually striking than Jonathan Sela’s photography in the first installment.
Chapter 4 has visual cues directly borrowed from Lawrence of Arabia and The Warriors and a bright color palette plucked straight out of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Lola and The Wachowskis’ Speed Racer. It’s as refined as it gets and continuously pushes the boundaries of how modern action movies should look. Enough with the drab “realistic” digital cinematography that plagues far too many American blockbusters these days. Film is a visual medium. A blockbuster of this scale shouldn’t emulate real life, but instead, give massive amounts of visual splendor the likes which audiences have never seen before.
The film’s last hour is set in Paris and is what the French describe as a “morceau de bravoure,” defined as the most remarkable passage of a masterpiece. It starts with a thrilling gunfight in the middle of the Arc de Triomphe’s roundabout before moving into the aforementioned “Dragon Breath” scene. It concludes in a Montmartre staircase sequence that ranks very high as one of the ten best action scenes I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I hate being hyperbolic, but whenever you think Stahelski and Laustsen can’t possibly top what you’ve just seen, they continuously reinvent themselves and find a new visual language for their fight sequences. The 169 minute runtime is mostly due to the film’s overlong fight scenes, but it flies by fast. Dialogue scenes are minimal but riveting, with its biggest highlight involving Skarsgård and McShane, who are both terrific in their respective roles.
The only word audiences will utter at the end of John Wick: Chapter 4 is “more!” And more will be coming, with the upcoming Len Wiseman-directed, Ana de Armas-starring Ballerina (which will also star Reeves, the late Lance Reddick, and McShane) and the three-episode Peacock limited series The Continental. But as for the main John Wick franchise, it’s best to go out on a high, because I cannot possibly think they will ever top this. Len Wiseman is such an uninspired choice for Ballerina that I may be proven right. Who knows what will happen, but at least we have John Wick: Chapter 4 – the best film of the greatest American action franchise of the past decade.
