Screenplay:
Derek KolstadCinematography:
Jonathan SelaCast:
Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Lance Reddick, Toby Leonard Moore, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo (more)VOD (3)
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An ex-hitman comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters that took everything from him. With New York City as his bullet-riddled playground, JOHN WICK (Keanu Reeves) is a fresh and stylized take on the "assassin genre". (Lionsgate US)
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Reviews (16)
No action movie is complete without a proper villain, and we haven’t seen a more thoroughbred action movie than John Wick in a decade. Unfortunately, its bad guy is a nice, puppy-dog-eyed thrift store uncle. This incomprehensible casting failure is not helped by the direction, which on the one hand wants the audience to be moved by Wick’s wife dying from cancer or his puppy being mercilessly killed, but also tries to entertain with a detached perspective and cynical jokes. This creates a strange emotional mishmash which, however, is rescued from being B-movie absurdity by its cool dark style, great super-brutal action scenes, Keanu Reeves’ spectacular avenger and a few screenwriting ideas that add some refreshing comic-book elements (a hotel for killers). All of this makes me raise my rating to three and half stars.
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A couple of points for the action, zero points for the story. The problem is that it has some scenes that are clearly meant to be funny, together with scenes that are mean to be really serious. Unfortunately, the serious moments are so stupid (Keanu cradling his dead dog to the sounds of sad music) that I couldn’t help but laugh. But that stylish action scene in the club is enough to make me like this film and make me willing to give it an above-average rating of six points out of ten.
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Sorry, but I've already been age 15 a few times for me. John chose the wrong target from the beginning. He should have taken care of the screenwriter, but slowly because for God's sake, just don't kill him when you can torture him! And the torture needs a lot of creativity for that idiot to suffer and live for as long as possible. I'll give it one star for the actors who don't deserve a Boo! rating, but otherwise, I suffered from the very beginning of this film. Do action movies really have to be so stupid?? Overall impression: 20%.
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Although this is not the arrival of the Savior, but is a small salvation of dying (sub) genre. And that means something, right? And especially if you nostalgically remember the nineties, when an action movie for cinemas was not synonymous with the overflowing CGI animation about rescuing of the world by (meta) guys in T-shirts, but it was a guy's movie with unexcited ugly guys in dirty undershirts, with a gun in their hands and a stinky armpits, which were more about local survival/revenge/threat. And that's exactly the character Max Payne is ... Um, John Wick, who has no superpowers (even though his 100 + 1 headshot can be considered powers), but the ultimate motivation "you Russian bastards, you killed my puppy that my dying wife gave to me and they prevented me from mourning, so now I have to blow your brains out of your heads", which you won't beat, even if you call Mr. Chekhov from the grave to write the characters. It is simply a straightforward B-rate playful action movie of the old-fashioned type that does not suffer from a shaky camera and knows nothing about crazy editing or CGI shit. And thank God it does not take itself seriously (except for the moving introduction).
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The admirable purity of the genre (the filmmaking enthusiasm is gushing from it) doesn't quite match the script, which doesn't limp in motivations or dialogue (on the contrary, the simplicity is a good thing). Yet, paradoxically, I would have liked to see even more broken arms, and gunshots to the head, and overall I would have actually gone a bit harder in the fanboy exhibition because the great technical aspect encourages it like few other things. A weaker four stars. I'll be happy to watch selected moments again.
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