John Wick 4

 

I'm a huge fan of the ridiculousness of Chad Stahelski's John Wick action film franchise -- of both the implausibility of the marvelous mayhem on the screen and of the huge, enthusiastic fanbase that loves the invincibility and righteousness of the title character, played with inimitable stoicism by Keanu Reeves.

The 4th (final?) chapter of this series, much like the previous installments, is about high-end global assassins trying to put an end to one of their own, Wick. The picture is an eye-popping delight with many extended balletic gunfights against stunningly beautiful international backdrops -- the Arabian desert, New York, Osaka, Paris. The body count is absurdly high, as is the number of ways used to send the assassins to their graves.

The chief villain in this Wick chapter is the Marquis de Gramont, played with icy efficiency by Bill Skarsgård. The marquis, the very model of noble detachment crossed with a hitman's bloodlust, has been named the agent for the ancient organization called The Table, which both outlaws and funds internecine battles between the legion of assassins around the world. Wick is out of favor with The Table for going renegade back in Chapter 1 and the Marquis has marked him for extermination with a $20 million bounty.

Stahelski pulls out all stops and pushes all of the close-quarter fisticuffs, chases and vehicular collisions to the max. The former stuntman and stunt coordinator has an uncanny way of knowing how not to let all of this excess become excessive. Instead, they're exquisite examples of production design and movement. Few set pieces in my memory will outdo Wick 4's early morning showdown in speeding traffic around the Arc de Triomphe or the subsequent battle on the stairs of Sacré Coeur.

This violence is made palatable because everything is draped in comic book irony. The major returning supporting characters -- Wick's longtime cohorts Winston (Ian McShane ) and the King (Laurence Fishburne) who have suffered because of their friendship with Wick -- wink at the audience as they struggle mightily to retain or return to normalcy in their very abnormal worlds.

Other standouts in this episode are Donnie Yen as the formidable blind assassin Caine, and Shamier Anderson as the Tracker, a freelance wetworker trying to get a piece of the Wick bounty action.

The recently departed Lance Reddick also makes a brief return as Charon, the concierge for the New York Continental hotel, where it all began back in 2014.