Review: John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Rated R for pervasive strong violence and some language

Score: 4 out of 5

John Wick: Chapter 4 is absolute, balls-to-the-wall action movie excess. It feels like a film where everybody involved, given a $100 million budget and carte blanche to make the ultimate action movie as they defined it, decided to throw in everything they could without concern for pacing, just a pure spectacle running close to three hours that is designed to wallop your senses with some of the most awe-inspiring action scenes you've ever witnessed. You've got shootouts. You've got a horse chase in the Moroccan desert that opens the film. You've got hand-to-hand fighting with everything from nunchaku to swords to martial arts. You've got goons wearing heavy body armor forcing the heroes to get in close. You've got a high-stakes card game that ends in, you guessed it, a shootout in a Berlin nightclub where everybody is drenched in falling water. You've got what I've seen described as a lethal game of Frogger in the Arc de Triomphe roundabout. You've got shotguns that fire incendiary rounds. You've got a scene filmed from a top-down perspective that evokes Metal Gear Solid or Hotline Miami. You've got a lengthy climatic action scene on a massive staircase that Rocky Balboa could never. It feels like director Chad Stahelski was influenced this time around less by Hong Kong heroic bloodshed movies than he was by video games that throw an absolute onslaught of enemies at you, knowing that the real appeal isn't the plot but overcoming the next challenge the game throws your way.

And it also has a surprisingly melancholy plot, clearly intended as a grand finale for this series given that Keanu Reeves, as great as he still is as an action hero, is also 58 years old and not getting any younger. Set an unspecified amount of time after the events of the first three films, we start with John, having gone into hiding with help from the Bowery King now that he's wanted dead by the High Table, rigorously training for the day when he sets out to get his revenge on them. We open the film with the Bowery King presenting John with his trademark Kevlar-lined tuxedo and asking if he's ready, and from there, we begin our nearly three hours of globe-trotting ass-whooping that's structured almost like a video game as John has to complete various errands for allies before he finally takes on the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, the extremely wealthy French fop hired by the High Table to take John out. John's hope for the escape from a life of crime he's sought for four movies now is a high-stakes duel with the Marquis where, if he wins, he will claim as his prize freedom from the obligations placed on him in accordance with a series of arcane rules that govern organized crime in the series' universe. The Marquis, who has more than a bit of a dirty coward streak to him, responds by putting an ever-escalating bounty on John's head in the tens of millions of dollars in the hopes that somebody will kill John before he has to face Baba Yaga head-to-head.

This movie is long, and it feels like it, in what turns out to be a double-edged sword that marks its biggest weakness but also does a great job putting the viewer in John's headspace. While there are moments, especially early in the film, that are light on action, they all serve to build up to the film's bloody action set pieces, featuring a who's who of character actors ranging from returning series veterans like Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, and the late Lance Reddick (who died just days before this film premiered) to newcomers like Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen as the blind assassin Caine who clearly respects John and doesn't like that he has to kill him, Shamier Anderson as the mysterious Mr. Nobody who you're not quite sure is an ally of John's or an enemy, Scott Adkins as the slimy German crime boss Killa, pop star Rina Sawayama delivering a surprisingly solid acting debut as a yakuza boss' daughter named Akira, and Bill Skarsgård making the Marquis a truly loathsome villain in his cowardice and brutality. Each and every one of them gets plenty of time to shine in the action scenes, almost to the point of bloat, especially once the film reaches Paris and starts throwing everything it possibly can at John; at some point, you have to ask yourself when enough is enough. It's hard to complain about this much ass-kicking in one movie, but it eventually starts wearing you down, just like the film seems committed to wearing John down on his long and grueling road to freedom. There's easily a version of this movie that, in the hands of a lesser director than Stahelski, could've just turned into a slog.

But... this movie has enough killer action scenes to power three whole other comparable movies. Every time I started to ask myself if I'd seen enough, this film grabbed me by the ear, pulled my attention back to the screen, and managed to find a way to impress me once again. I've already given a rundown of some of the highlights, but suffice it to say, just as the first movie helped spur a revival of Hollywood action cinema, I can see many scenes from this one inspiring other filmmakers to try and imitate them. In particular, I'd like to comment on the influence that video games seem to have had lately on action movies, made more obvious than ever here in the scene shot from a top-down view. In games, the action needs to be crystal-clear and easy to follow for a very practical reason, namely that you don't wanna make things unnecessarily difficult and cheap for the player. Bad camera angles used to be the bane of 3D action games, especially before the likes of Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War perfected how it's done in the modern day, and oftentimes, it was specifically because they were trying to imitate the "cinematic" flair of the movies. As it turned out, the same qualities that make action easy to follow in games also apply well to movies, and I would not be surprised if a behind-the-scenes featurette shows Stahelski and others involved with the production openly cite those games as a direct inspiration.

The Bottom Line

This is a movie that's designed to kick your ass as hard as John kicks the asses of the goons sent after him, for better or worse. It makes up for its pacing problems and overly-long ending with sheer overwhelming firepower, demonstrating that quantity is a quality all its own. If you want the last word in outrageous action, then bring a nice comfy seat to the theater and steel yourself.