John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Killer’s killer John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is still attempting to somehow defeat the killer cult hierarchy known as the High Table, after begging for his life didn’t really work out for him in the third movie. Because he’s murdering goons and higher-ups like nobody’s business, the new Marquis (Bill Skarsgård) is trying to get rid of him with particular enthusiasm (and while speaking with a dubious accent that’s apparently meant to be French). This guy’s even less subtle than his predecessors, so destroying Winston’s (Ian McShane) hotel because he didn’t betray John well enough in the last film, and murdering Charon (Lance Reddick, who will be missed in real life around here) is only the beginning of what will turn out to be sending yet more hordes of goons after John.

Goons, as well as John’s old friend, the blind assassin Caine (Donnie Yen), in what is probably supposed to be an attempt at psychological warfare. John for his part might just stumble upon a plan of his own. Don’t worry, it involves the only thing he’s really good at.

I was really nonplussed with the pointless circle jerk plot of the third John Wick, and didn’t particularly enjoy most of the action in it either, so I didn’t go into Chad Stahelski’s sequel expecting much of anything from it. My low expectations were considerably exceeded, and this very long, probably final for now, part of the franchise turned out to be very good fun for me. Even its rather excessive length doesn’t really keep this one down: while it might be cut by fifteen, twenty minutes, for most of the time, the epic length of any given action set piece in here is rather the aesthetic point.

For this is a movie that’s burning to make you see every single moment of choreography, every movement stuntmen make, every improvement the effects crew makes to their imperfect humanity, so it’s showing you all of it, not caring one whit if the audience becomes as exhausted as our protagonist. Camerawork and editing often feel genuinely influenced by arthouse cinema of the Slow Cinema style, Stahelski finding a nice angle and then slowly panning through the action, or rising towards the ceiling – in this case probably not to say something philosophical about the nature of humanity but to show off as much as possible in what I’m tempted to call Slow Maximalism. In many of the set pieces, the feeling of physical forward momentum comes exclusively from what stunt people and actors and post-production achieve. The camera’s just there to watch. That this works out for the film as well as it does is a compliment to everyone involved in these departments, and that Stahelski makes it work demonstrates an astonishing absence of directorial ego (which in this context may have something to do with his roots in stunt work).

At this point, the series has also become adept at filming around  Keanu’s specific weaknesses as a screen fighter, and often make him look as good as the earlier films in the series said he is.

Otherwise, this has some of the most fun archetypes of the series. The great Donnie Yen’s joyfully played morally complicated blind assassin is the obvious stand-out here, but Rina Sawayama makes a much better action heroine than you’d expect from a pop star, and Shamier Anderson’s backpacking tourist-styled tracker with a dog is also simply fun to watch interacting with the rest of the cast.

Add to this the film’s moments of genuine weirdness – like Scott Adkins in a fat suit as a German gangster who gets it in pretty bizarre nightclub fight – and it’s pretty difficult to resist the charms of John Wick, Chapter 4.