There’s been a running line on John Wick: Chapter 4 that it is the “epic” installment of the John Wick series. A sentiment that we could argue the movie itself encourages by having its first scene transition be a mimicry of one of the most famous cuts in all of cinema, one of several gestures throughout the franchise that signal director Chad Stahelski is not just a genius at orchestrating action setpieces… he’s also a huge film nerd.
If I demur from calling Chapter 4 THE epic of John Wick, it isn’t to claim that movie isn’t a globe-trotting broad canvassed epic on its own terms. That’s just an indisputable fact. But I do think its predecessor Chapter 3 – Parabellum had already introduced the concept of a John Wick epic (albeit one with less globe-trotting than Chapter 4 has) and for a long while it feels like Chapter 4 is specifically taking its cues from Parabellum. In fact, because Chapter 4, as structured by Michael Finch and returning writer Shay Hatten, seems to arrange itself so neatly into a prologue in Morocco, a first act in Osaka, a second act in Berlin, and a final act in Paris (with some layovers in New York City) that one can pinpoint the moment Chapter 4 actually ignites into its own estimable thing.
But we can’t skip quite to that point: we need to start from the same point as our titular assassin (Keanu Reeves), now fully recovered from his sudden betrayal and fall from the New York City Continental Hotel’s graces at the end of Chapter 3 and ready to take his vengeance directly on AN Elder (not THE same Elder from the previous film) who are among the highest-ranked members of this secret society of killers living in plain sight. And the governing High Table saw necessary as a result of Wick’s actions to provide unilateral power to a Pepe le Pew-accented French noble as the newly appointed Marquis (Bill Skarsgard), who in turn exercises his power plays to punish the Continental and its former manager Winston (Ian McShane) before he tries to smoke out any hiding place of John’s. This hunt is most of what drives the movie’s global trajectory and it lends to a splitting of allegiances this time around that feels one of many elements reminiscent of Sergio Leone and his seminal Western masterpiece The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (there is also an indulgence by composers Tyler Bates & Joel J. Richard into Spanish guitar musical cues reminiscent of Morricone’s iconic notes and a climactic moment that mimics the operatic weight of the famous Sad Hill Duel). For you see, there’s not just John on this chase for a way out of the crosshairs, but a former ally now forced to go mercenary, the blind swordsman Caine (Donnie Yen, through his charismatic melancholy and sarcasm giving by a large margin the best performance of a spotless ensemble). And rounding out the trio of pursuers is a nameless tracker (Shabier Anderson) accompanied by a very good dog. I couldn’t tell who is the Good or the Bad or the Ugly (the all blur between the first two and none of them are ugly), but there’s a three-way tension between their conflicts and alliances that’s familiar to the chemistry between Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef before them.
Overlooking the whole of the situation, it’s John still running around the world from everybody trying to kill him, but now with two of the faces hunting him with more pathos and dimension. That said, if I risk accurately describing Chapter 4 as a retread of Chapter 3 (especially its first hour where it reruns another Continental Raid in Osaka skin, complete with a room full of glass panels intended to be smashed through), Chapter 4 is the sort of movie that makes a benefit out revisiting previous elements. It’s essentially a greatest hits of the entire franchise, curtain calling all the things we loved about the previous installments in a way that mixes totally well to the smaller character-based scope and growing escalation that Chapter 4 progresses through in its (not entirely earned) 169 minutes. Heck, a privileged European brat as the antagonist? That’s straight out of Chapter 2. A vague ally/adversary who has a dog trained specifically to go for crotches? One less than the amount in Chapter 3 – Parabellum, but no less familiar or welcome. Another multi-level nightclub fight involving John stalking his way to his fleeing target? The highlight of the very first John Wick (including music cues that are remixes by Le Castle Vania of what they composed for the original nightclub fight). And speaking of the first John Wick film, this is the first of the three sequels to actually feel emotionally in conversation that movie’s core concept of a man trying to kill away his grief, making it almost rich of a character study and tying off the full arc of John as a character after Chapters 2 and 3 just focused on how exhausting these days in his life must be since his wife died and how he has no grasp on processing his grief except killing everyone in front of him. These emotional stakes – beautifully performed by Keanu Reeves in his muted frustration and focus as well as the movie’s moody aesthetic (probably the best thing the Osaka sequence has going for it: reintroducing John against complete night black only cut by red lines and leaves flowing off a tree) – make for another arena in which the movie signals its closing of the journey, reminiscing on what got him to this situation and the possibility of its end.
But really the most essential root for the Grand Finale attitude John Wick: Chapter 4 portrays is its arrangement of these action setpieces in a way that escalates piece by piece. Certainly those sequences boast the same strengths as the first three: gorgeous neon indoor photography or coarse urban outdoor photography, dizzying and precise choreography, and there’s even one fun new feature where Stahelski, production designer Kevin Kavanaugh, and cinematographer Dan Laustsen are providing a more geometric presentation of these fights. There’s always a stressing of circles and lines and orientations, like in the afore-mentioned glass panels or the drums within that room or the downward indoor waterfalls of a nightclub or a high-intensity car chase around a famous landmark’s roundabout. Probably the most significant point of visual interest here is the most bravura setpiece where the camera rises over the entire floor to look at the action between rooms alike Hotline Miami (or to name the actual video game Stahelski claimed inspiration from, Hong Kong Massacre), portraying the action as small figures between these walls with a stressing on the direction of the bloodshed and the blasts (including a fucking awesome flamethrowing set of rounds). This setpiece also illustrates an action movie franchise finally embracing its inherent video game qualities (alongside Bates‘ techno heavy score giving beat ‘em up rhythms to Wick’s fights).
Anyway, back to that escalation: there’s a sense of progression between the battles and their increasing sense of scope, something that establishes John is metaphorically climbing even before the penultimate setpiece where he actually has to fight to climb up a lot of stairs. And it’s not just an extension of John Wick: Chapter 4’s living video game style but a satisfying way to present an action movie because every setpiece feels like its better than the first, particularly when the Paris sequence just slams us into them one-after-another with no breath to take between them until the film’s absolute high point, a quiet and patient one-on-one duel in the sunrise (that’s confessedly where the movie’s digital cinematography fails a bit but only just then). The franchise could not ask for a more appropriate send-off: a sequence that focuses all the movie’s stakes in one critical confrontation with tension at a high. And when all the dust has cleared, what’s left behind is a picture that rounds out probably the most consistently impressive action franchise we’ve had since Jackie Chan’s Police Story and maybe even moreso. Stahelski and his collaborators have only engaged with each subsequent entry as a challenge in crafting more elaborate and entertaining shoot ‘em up cinema and expanding the broad theatrics of action cinema as an anchor for emotional storytelling. What’s most impressive is how they’ve managed to push the envelope after every installment’s peak implied nowhere further to go with John Wick: Chapter 4 deciding to close the story (barring some cursed sounding spin-offs that are already about to be released). The result is four films that make for the maybe the most consistently excellent action cinema of the 21st Century if not all time. In Pace Requiescat.
Movie Motorbreath 