Can We Please Let John Wick Rest in Peace?
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This story contains spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4.
Such is life. So the John Wick saga begins and (possibly) ends—with loss.
In John Wick: Chapter 4, which is finally available on VOD this week, the franchise finds a few quiet moments to contemplate its past. John Wick (played for nearly a decade by Keanu Reeves) and his compatriots reflect on the choices they’ve made that turned them into the tired, broken, and stoic killing machines they’ve become. There’s no remorse—only acceptance for the well-dressed warrior monks. And for the fourth time, the world’s most deadly wife-guy returned to inflict his brand of elaborately choreographed mayhem on anyone that’s left to get in his way.
Now, if Chapter 4 is indeed John Wick’s final headshot, it scored the highest-earning opening weekend of the entire franchise according to Box Office Pro. Each chapter opened to bigger box office success than the previous entry, a momentum few other franchises can claim. The franchise will continue with Ballerina starring Ana de Armas, slated for release next year, and a prequel TV series on Peacock called The Continental, which is set in Los Angeles. With two spinoff properties in the works, it’s yet to be seen if the world of markers and gold coins will resonate the same way. If efforts like Bullet Train and Atomic Blonde are any indication, mileage will vary. Both films were directed by Stahelski’s 87eleven partner and John Wick co-director David Leitch.
So the Wickiverse will live on, sure, but hear me out: Keanu Reeves's assassin should be left out of it. Why, you ask? Because Chapter 4 is the best ending for Wick we ever could have asked for.
Thanks to an outburst of virtue from Mr. Wick back in John Wick: Chapter 2, he’s pursued by the underworld’s board of directors: the High Table. After barely escaping their relentless condemnation in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, the hitman some know as the Baba Yaga, or Boogeyman, begins his quest for retribution by galloping through the Moroccan desert toward his first kill—a hat tip to David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia. In Chapter 4, director Chad Stahelski embraces Lean’s scale by extending the franchise’s already extensive fight scenes and pushing the runtime to nearly three hours. Chapter 4 is a high-octane mix of what we’ve come to expect from the series that’s spoiled its audience with original, kinetic action sequences and upscale echelon of assassins. Because of the high bar each sequel has set, there are times when Chapter 4 leaves you in awe and others when you are merely completely satisfied.
The neon noir world Stahelski carefully constructed over four films begins to crumble. The poshly villainous Marquis Vincent de Gramont (played by Bill Skarsgård) is tasked with finishing John Wick off once and for all. He starts with Winston (played by Ian McShane); the manager of the five-star, all-inclusive home base-like safe house for the criminal underworld known as The Continental. Because of his continued betrayal of the High Table in order to help his pal John Wick, de Gramont demolishes The Continental and kills its loyal concierge Charon (played by the recently deceased Lance Reddick).
De Gramont also enlists Caine (played by martial arts legend Donnie Yen), a blind assassin, to do the dirty work of eliminating John Wick. Like his old friend John, Caine is a retired hitman forced to do one last job. Rather than satisfying a blood oath like John, Caine must take the job in order to protect his daughter. Winston informs John of an old tradition that allows him to challenge de Gramont to a duel in order to win his freedom. It’s a clever act of High Table jurisprudence that highlights the odd idea that the John Wick series has secretly been about rules the entire time.
What Stahelski clearly finds interesting about John Wick, the character, is the idea of the honorable assassin. It’s a corrupted sense of morality, but a sense of morality nonetheless. The High Table’s rules are absolute—and throughout the chapters, John has seen the way they can be exploited and unjustly enforced. They clash with his integrity, and he’s absolutely going to make it a big problem for them. The final section of the film takes place in France, a fitting location for a revolt against tyranny.
Since Chapter 2, the series became a globe-trotting thrill ride à la James Bond, establishing that a Continental exists in every major city. This chapter, John elegantly executes his foes through Morocco, New York, Osaka, Berlin, and Paris. Each destination gives Stahelski a different theme to thread into his elaborately choreographed action sequences, but also feels like a genre checklist he and Reeves have compiled.
The first major sequence is at the Osaka Continental, allowing for a samurai-influenced set piece with a weapons menu that includes kitanas, nunchucks, and arrows. It’s the first time we see Caine in action as he takes on the location’s manager Koji (played by Hiroyuki Sanada) and his daughter/concierge Akira (Rina Sawayama). It’s filled with colorful LEDs, a cheeky Donnie Yen, and, of course, is impressively choreographed but feels a bit conventional. It lacks the fresh takes on the familiar that the series trained us to expect. The use of bows and arrows in the Indian epic RRR feels much more Wickian than what the scene offers.
It’s never a glaring disappointment but there are times when Chapter 4 doesn’t quite fulfill the promise of besting the previous installment. Rather than the horse and dual dog combat from Chapter 3, the canine quota is halved in the form of assassin Mr. Nobody’s (Shamier Anderson) companion.
Before a busy night out, The Bowery King (played by an operatic Laurence Fishburne) arms John with a handgun called a Pit Viper. Apparently, this is a real gun for sale, which makes sense for the verisimilitude stuntman-turned-director Stahelski goes out of his way to include in his action. I was a bit let down that when John employs his Gun-Fu (close-quarter tactical gun work mixed with jiu-jitsu), it really just acts like any other handgun he’s used. Upon hearing the term "viper," it’s not unreasonable to expect a poison element to the weapon, especially when the film introduces the “Dragon’s Breath,” a shotgun blast that also sets you on fire.
Chapter 4 more than makes up for it with the film’s magnum-opus sequence of set pieces. The night before their duel, de Gramont sets a bounty on John to prevent him from participating. What ensues is an After Hours style manhunt of John Wick through the streets of Paris.
A firefight on a café-lined street leads to the highlight of the film: a battle in the circular road around the Arc de Triomphe. The Frogger-like skirmish sees John taking on a constant flow of bad guys as muscle cars and motorcycles weave in, out, and against the busy flow of traffic. John uses the oncoming cars for cover or accoutrement as he maneuvers his adversaries into their path. An impressive bird’s eye view sequence inside a townhouse leads to the final obstacle: an enormous stairway, littered with assailants which is all that stands between him and the duel. John fights his way to the top, only to be pushed all the way back down, making for a delightful metaphor for the Sisyphean existence he’s led trying to escape his life as John Wick.
“How you do anything is how you do everything,” says de Gramont. It's a line Stahelski attributes to his cinematic godmothers Lilly and Lana Wachowski. Stahelski first met Reeves on the set of The Matrix as his stunt double. The John Wick series owes its success to partnership of Stahelski and Reeves and their practice makes perfect filmmaking philosophy.
In John Wick 4, the duo has reached something close to perfect. So while few things definitively conclude in Hollywood these days, it's time to close the book on John Wick and let him finally rest in peace.
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