John Wick – 2014 – Keanu Reeves and Michael Nyqvist

I have a mixed impression of Keanu Reeves acting skills. I don’t know why since most of the film I’ve seen with him have been quite enjoyable. Most of all Matrix I think. That ought to be the one single film that Keanu Reeves is most known for. Since this isn’t a review of that movie I will keep it brief but I keep insisting what that movie’s quality really are. It’s remembered for stunning action sequences and special effects. But I feel that the story itself is what should be focused on. That we all live in a Matrix rather than a real world. That would, of course, make the pseudo-world the real world after all. I think I could go on forever with these theories. But this is John Wick, not Matrix.

I can think of no other actor that could carry this action story better than Keanu Reeves. I know that might be in contrast to what I write in the first paragraph. But he’s really good in this one. And he does lots of the stunts himself. I think it makes the scenes more ‘real’. Of course, it has a lot to do with the editing too. A good editor should be able to edit out the stuntmen and make the action seamless. Most of the time at least.

There’s a lot of martial arts like scenes and a lot of action driving. But most of all John Wick is a movie where there are lots of guns firing. Somewhere in the extra material they comment on this fact and claims that this is not a Kung-Fu movie rather a Gun-Fu movie. That makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of shooting. And John Wick is a very violent movie. There might not be guts and blood but there are more headshots than I think I ever saw before.

That makes sense since John Wick is a revenge movie. His wife just died and in his hour of grief, some gangsters attack him in his home. They steal his beloved car and kills his dog. That was a grave mistake since John is a former hitman. And not just any hitman, he’s known as the best in the business. He craves revenge. Things get complicated when he realizes that the main perpetrator is the son of the man he used to work for (Michael Nyqvist). A powerful mobster with almost endless capacities to defend himself and his family. The cat and mouse game has begun. But who is the cat and who is the mouse?

Disclaimer: The original post was lost and I’ve tried to recreate it as good as I could from memory. I don’t always remember all the details I felt in the original writing moment so there might be some differences. To keep the tempo up I’ve tried to be as short and to the point as possible.