John Wick: Chapter 4 - Directed by Chad Stahelski
By the time I entered the final 45 minutes of John Wick: Chapter 4 I was delirious. This wasn’t a bad thing. By my count I had already witnessed 4 sprawling action set pieces and realized why my delirium was so welcome. This film owed as much to historical action cinema as it did to Chuck Jones, a name synonymous with Looney Tunes. For all the brutality that packs audiences into theaters every time a John Wick film is released there is an underlying draw to the films because of how they treat John Wick the man. The films treat his body with cartoonish elasticity and derangement.
In Chapter 4, Keanu Reeves suffers falls that would kill any other person. A lot of them. And yet he keeps getting up to continue his fight. Even though nearly every action sequence in the film could be John Wick’s last I still watched the film with incredulous glee. I can’t believe this man is taking so much punishment. But four films in this is the man that keeps pulling people into theaters. As the world of these films grew over the years with new locations and characters so too did the cartoonish nature of them. The sets became more and more ludicrously dressed, the lighting playing right into the idea that John Wick’s world is more cartoon than reality with rooms impractically lit with brilliant neon that give the film a beautiful color but would be ridiculous to actual live and work in. That isn’t to say the action isn’t the number one draw. John Wick as a film series is unrivaled in American cinema when it comes to its set pieces. It’s had plenty of imitators but what none of those other films realize is if you’re going to come at the king you’d better not miss. The time, care, and love put into every stunt is evident in every frame of a John Wick film and those looking for a quick cash in simply can’t compete.
Chapter 4 was a blast to see in a full theater. The cartoonish brutality and over-the-top performances boil the film down to watching sports rivals go head-to-head and every in the theater is on the same team. It was a true pleasure to hear hooting and hollering as one of the films many villains was finally taken down. But for its swinging for the fences approach to action set pieces it’s far more narratively focused than Chapter’s 2 and 3. Here, John Wick seeks to finally buy his freedom by dueling the Marquis (Bill Skarsgård), a crime-world fixture of inherited power who has been emboldened to bend and break the rules by the High Table in an effort to maintain its supremacy in the face of Wick’s flagrant disruption. If you aren’t super familiar with the film’s lore that probably all sounds like gobbledygook and frankly, I don’t blame you. The details don’t really matter here. What matters is the filmmaking craft that blends Looney Tunes, and the visual trickery of Buster Keaton with master classes in martial arts filmmaking that call back to the best works of Jackie Chan and John Woo. Chapter 4 is a seminar on what the human body is capable of onscreen. Its limits and its wonders.
Chapter 4 is the best-looking John Wick film visually speaking. Director Chad Stahelski and cinematographer Dan Laustsen keep the visuals crisp and beautiful whether they’re establishing a location or character or allowing us to follow without any confusion the insane action that occupies the bulk of the film’s run time. When bullets and punches aren’t flying there’s still plenty to feast on visually. Even the quietest moments are worth your time, like when Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King character blows out a match and we cut to a cresting sunset. An obvious Lawrence of Arabia nod but a nice one. It’s becoming harder and harder to discern if modern filmmakers are actually media literate or if they all feel full on their own brand of genius and press forward without taking stock of what came before. Stahelski wants to make it clear that not only has he seen the classics, but he also owes them plenty. The stellar production design deserves credit as well, particularly in the way the Osaka Continental (run by Hiroyuki Sanada’s Shimazu Koji and his concierge and daughter, Akira, played by Rina Sawayama) is dressed and designed. Its clean lines, glossy surfaces, glass-encased weapons and artifacts, and all-around cool tones diligently build out this world defined by the intertwining of beauty and blood. I was struck by the use of so many shades of red against this backdrop — magenta, crimson, cherry. One of the most tantalizing shots positions Reeves in the left corner, the field of vision otherwise dominated by cherry blossoms in full bloom and a circular building sliced with lights of arterial red. Stahelski and Laustsen make profound use of horizontal space even when one of its best blunders, played out by Reeves on the 222 steps of Paris’s Sacré Coeur basilica, is obviously vertically defined.
And it’s not just Reeves but the many actors in his orbit who shine with a blend of vengeful grace and humorous beats. Bodies everywhere are cut, shot through, flipped, broken, and strangely beautiful when meeting their ends. Donnie Yen plays Caine, a close friend of Wick’s who is pulled back into the life of an assassin to kill his comrade. He has already given up his eyesight in order to protect his daughter and get out, but here, he is forced to endure. He’s delightfully cheeky in his fight scenes, moving with quick-witted, silken force, making Wick’s brutality all the more blatant. Yen is the film’s MVP — whether he’s slurping down food and ignoring the violence blooming around him or shit-talking the Marquis to his face. Then there’s Sanada’s beautifully rendered Shimazu, dear and determined, who puts his life on the line out of love for Wick and a belief in honor. The friendship between these three men is crucial to the emotional world of the film and gives it layers I wasn’t expecting. When Wick speaks Japanese to Shimazu or shares a long gaze with Caine, these relationships are given an intimacy that relies on Reeves’s own three-decade-long history as a star undergirded by considerations of race, identity, and history. I was especially surprised by just how good pop star Sawayama is in her role. She gives looks, poses, the right angles, charisma, grit. She’s so eye-catching that I got lost in the beauty of her performance whenever she was onscreen. And Skarsgard? He’s perfect at Wick’s foil. While Wick is stoic and terse, the Marquis loves the sound of his own voice as well as he loves his suits that threaten to cost as much as the nicest homes I’ve ever been in. Even the French accent that Skarsgard takes on in this film feels like more than just assigning the character a nation to be born from. He speaks in a near drawl, implying the ease with which he coasts through his privileged life. A terrific villain.
With everything going on in Chapter 4 it’s easy to forget that the anchor of all of these films is Keanu Reeves. His performance is good if subtle. Most of his screen time is devoted to his physical grace and determination. There are some quieter moments, like a scene in a candlelit church with Yen where we get to see Reeves’ pure ability as an actor come alive. We have very few performers that can give vulnerability and virility in the same breath. The true magic here is that as the cast of characters grows and rumors of spin off films that won’t feature Reeves grow more and more concrete, it’s clear that these films simply wouldn’t be what they are without their titular actor. Reeves disappears into this role (all his roles) and does so without demanding the limelight. Even a film like Top Gun: Maverick, a movie I adore, feels like a highlight reel for Tom Cruise. The Wick films have never felt this way. Keanu fits himself into the mold of these films and demands little else but time to practice his craft. Wherever the Wick films go from here I just hope they understand that Reeves is their beating heart and may struggle to find their footing without him.
