Inasmuch as every John Wick enterprise has essentially featured him, alone, against a horde of would-be assassins, this last chapter in the saga — at least, presumably — is more or less in keeping with all that came before it, it just goes to a question of degree: By the middle of "John Wick: Chapter 4's" propulsive third act, it would appear as if Wick has slaughtered nearly everyone on Earth — at the very least, that vital corner of the assassin economy (save for a couple of stragglers who maybe just weren’t feeling it that night, or had their Kevlar suit at the cleaners and lost their tickets).
In the course of the film, Wick systematically mows down every able-bodied, warm-blooded killer from Milan to Minsk.
In fact, the vast majority of the film’s nearly three-hour runtime consists solely of our boy dispatching these endless hordes of eurotrash killers. They come in wave after wave, especially after the nefarious Marquis (Bill Skarsgard), a smarmy, rich dude who favors double-breasted vests and matching ascots, authorizes a new bounty on John John’s head upward of $20 million. The Marquis has been sent by the Table, the assassin organization of which Wick had been a full member before his excommunication, in order to handle the growing problem of Wick mowing all of them down. Thus enabled, the Marquis wastes little time before setting things in motion, upping the ante in order to attract every scummy low-rent assassin in the network, along with some significantly more formidable ones.
Of the latter is included Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson), who, along with his loving, feisty German shepherd pup, has a direct bead on Wick, and negotiates with the Marquis his own price; and Caine (Donnie Yen), a super-skilled, blind killer, formerly retired, and a friend of Wick’s, but whose daughter is put in peril by the Table until pressed into bloody duty by them once again.
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Still trying to clear his name, and be cut free of all other obligations to his ever-demanding assassin’s guild, Wick re-enlists the aid of Winston (Ian McShane), after the Marquis, in a fit of pique, kills Winston’s concierge Charon (the late Lance Reddick), and forcibly has him removed from the Continental New York, of which he was in charge, laying waste to the place in the process. Thus fortified, Wick continues his assault on the Table, in Osaka, where he meets with the hotel director (Hiroyuki Sanada), and his daughter (Rina Sawayama), right before having to fend off yet another wave of killers sent via his snooty adversary.
It is finally brought to Wick’s attention that he can actually end this dispute with the Marquis by formally challenging him to a mano-a-mano duel, the winner of which getting to claim his price (for Wick, freedom, and for Winston, acting as his second, reinstatement to the hotel). Naturally, in order to issue such a challenge, he has to be part of an accepted “family,” leading to yet another round of killing and avenging, this time on behalf of a Russian group, led by a mariarch named Katia (Natalia Tena), who will accept him only if he dispatches a rotund German who murdered her father, and so on.
The Wick franchise has always relied on the downtrodden charisma of its star, Keanu, and the visceral, close-proximity carnage of its many, many fight scenes, as choreographed by director Chad Stahelski, himself a former renowned stunt coordinator. By this installment, however, it feels as if the pop and crack of these massacres have lost some of their novelty. Even as expertly choreographed and balletic as the fight scenes can be — and there’s one elongated battle here in which Wick returns to yet another massive, luxe nightclub, and brutally kills an indiscriminate number of villains as the dancers continue synchronized gyrating unabated around him — there can be, it turns out, far too much of a good thing.
Save for a few sequences near the end, during yet another assault, set inside an old French mansion where the camera suddenly raises up to offer a bird’s eye view as Wick makes his way around the different rooms, leaving bodies ever in his wake (making the circle complete as far as video-gaming the action goes) the film feels a good deal less inspired than in some of the series’ previous efforts. Instead, we get a sort of greatest hits medley — including the nightclub reprise, another astoundingly athletic and well-trained dog, etc. — most of which feels pretty played out long before we finally reach the final, final, final confrontation.
Even more potentially bravura settings — the final series of concrete steps leading to that last confrontation, for example — feels as if everyone just got wrung out and tired by the end, much as its desperate, bludgeoned protagonist might have felt in facing a series of staircases with new enemies up and down almost every step.
To be certain, Wick, whose reputation as the baddest of the bad, always seemed a bit preposterous, takes an absolutely hellish amount of damage this go round. In one scene alone, set around the Arc du Triomphe in Paris, he seems to get squarely hit by a half-dozen cars and takes thrice as many direct punches/kicks to the face, only to rise up again and again, in order to dispatch his army of foes.
Reeves, now 58, moves reasonably well for a man well past his physical prime, but what used to feel unrealistic has now become full-on fantasia. Essentially, by this time, it’s clear Wick can only die if he consents to it beforehand, which seems unlikely. The film tries to have it both ways a bit, emphasizing Reeve’s wheezy, loping run — unlike fellow quinquagenarian Tom Cruise, who thoughtfully includes a depiction of his flawless dead sprint in nearly every film he makes — and beaten-down bearing as a way of emphasizing the colossal challenges set before him, while also making him seemingly impervious to pain or failure.
One moment, he leaps out a two-story building, hitting an outcropping along the way, before smacking into the cobblestone street below him; the next, he’s up and running again, firing a sheet of bullets perfectly on target, completely unfazed. By this film, Wick has become not unlike the star character in some off-brand southern wrestling federation — call him “The Wraith,” and have him dress in stylish, monochrome dark suits — no amount of pain ever seems to stick with him.
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That is, other than the continued pain in his heart. At one point, during one of the Marquis’ frequent asides, he alludes to the fact that a man without purpose has nothing left to offer. He kills because either he has something to live for, or something to die for, neither of which the Marquis goes on to opine, Wick seems to possess. What he’s not taking into account is Wick’s desire for closure, so to speak, to set everything right again by all the people still alive whom he cares about, and in a manner of his own choosing.
Presumably, this will be the final chapter in the Wick saga (though the film definitely allows for the possibility of various spinoffs, including a film devoted to Caine, which I have to admit I would happily watch), and thus, we will be spared, along with him, the continual brutal beatings, shootings, and swordplay that have come to define nearly every one of his waking moments on this earth. Suffice it to say, I think by now his poor puppy has been well and truly avenged.
John Wick: Chapter 4
86 Cast: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgard, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Lance Reddick, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Clancy Brown, Ian McShane, Marko Zazor, Natalia Tena
Director: Chad Stahelski
Rating: R
Running time: 2 hours, 49 minutes
Playing theatrically