Keanu Reeves carries off
the titular hitman convincingly despite a brittle script and daft dialogue in
this stylish and bloodthirsty tale of vengeance.
Chad Stahelski (Reeves’ stunt double on The Matrix Trilogy and The
Crow) and co-director David Leitch offer up a lot of style and very little
substance in this tale of a notorious former hitman called John Wick. Mourning
the recent death of his wife, Russian gangsters target Wick and follow him to
his home where they steal his car and kill his puppy – bought by his wife shortly
before she died to help him cope with the grief. As he prepares to take
revenge, mob boss Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist) warns the gangsters that he once
saw Wick “kill three men in a bar… with a pencil” – one of several deadpan lines in the script that provokes more amusement than menace.
There are a smattering of stylishly shot action set-pieces enhanced greatly by an atmospheric electronic/industrial rock soundtrack - with songs from Marilyn Manson and M86 - creating the illusion of depth around the hollow story. Most memorably there’s a beautifully staged shoot-out in a nightclub hot tub to the backdrop of pulsing electropop outfit Kaleida which conflates elegance and violence
in a striking way that clearly owes an aesthetic debt to Nicholas Winding Refn’s superior and oneiric Drive and nightmarish Only God Forgives.
The result is a desperately schlocky and clichéd guilty pleasure. It’s
a sleazy 80s style revenge movie dressed up in modern tailoring, with Keanu
Reeves carrying off the central character far more convincingly than his recent spate of hit-and-miss roles. A hackneyed story effectively concealed under a glossy shell.
