Weekend Watch - John Wick: Chapter 4
Welcome back to the Weekend Watch where each week we take a look at a new piece of film or television media and give it a rating, review, and recommendation. This week’s topic, as voted by the blog’s Instagram followers is John Wick: Chapter 4, the latest (and final?) chapter of the Keanu Reeves action saga about the hidden world of assassins and intrigue run by the mysterious High Table. This film features the return of Reeves in the titular role as well as Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, and Ian McShane reprising their roles from the previous films. Joining the cast in this iteration are Clancy Brown, Marko Zaror, Bill Skarsgård, Donnie Yen, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, and Rina Sawayama to round out the action film’s ensemble of players. The film currently sits as the best reviewed of the franchise, so let’s get into it.
Letter Grade: A-; the film delivers everything we’ve come to expect from the John Wick franchise and then some with very little to gripe about.
Should you Watch This Film? Yes, but only if you’ve watched the previous three or at least read detailed synopses of them, otherwise most of the film’s stakes and references will make little to no sense.
Why?
John Wick: Chapter 4 is the culmination of the story and violence of the three previous films. Picking up a short amount of time after Chapter 3, this one again hits the ground running but this time with John as the pursuer rather than the pursued. This film unfolds differently than its predecessors because of this shift, focusing on the High Table’s response to John’s aggression against them, resulting in more time to breathe between set pieces but also more character development and exploration of the saga’s central themes of revenge and cyclical violence. Obviously, the action remains the highlight, but the characters are given space to live and die here as well.
Chapter 4 might be the best of the John Wick franchise because of how it brings closure to the story of the first three. From the simple revenge tale of the first to the frustration at being drawn back into a life of violence of the second to the repercussions of his actions from the second in the third, everything is brought home in Chapter 4. John’s desire for freedom from his past life, his vendetta against the High Table, the political machinations of the Bowery King and Winston – all of them are brought to a close in one way or another in this chapter. The world gets a bit more fleshed out but only as far as it needs to in order to understand how John can possibly attain his goal of escape. The true highlight of the film is John’s attempt to answer whether he can have a life outside of the killing – the question at the heart of every John Wick film. In this case, he seems to have decided that one final push of killing anyone in his way just might give him the opportunity to answer that question satisfactorily (a fascinating and tragic contradiction). Unfortunately, his decision to untether himself from specifically motivated vengeance leaves him on a fairly destructive and self-destructive path that he can only be wrested back from through human (and animal) connections. The story reminds us of our need for others in life, particularly in the hard times, to keep us from devolving into something worse – a plea for society, yes, but specifically good and supportive society as opposed to the toxic and parasitic one that John is seeking to break from.
The action remains fairly creative in this one, with a few more faceless henchmen in the first few sequences than I’d usually care for, but that error is quickly alleviated with a solid heavy fight in the middle of things and a high-octane final sequence that ends with a brilliant bit of simple one-on-one combat, which might be my favorite of the series on gravity alone. Overall, I’m still inclined to give Chapter 2 the props for best top-to-bottom action, but the implications present in every scene of violence in Chapter 4 definitely help it make up a lot of ground. I should also point out that Donnie Yen is the best addition to the John Wick cast, and I don’t totally understand why it took so long to get him here. His scenes are arguably better than Keanu Reeves’s for most of the film, but it really peaks when the two of them are facing off or working together (it alternates from scene to scene).
If you have loved the ride of the previous films in the saga, John Wick: Chapter 4 brings it all together for one last hurrah, sending the assassin off with its most weighty action sequences and plenty of closing thoughts on its world and story themes. In terms of pure action, it might not be the top one of the saga, but it carries plenty of energy to keep its fans happy. This film is currently available to see in theaters, and I encourage you to check it out if you can.
