John Wick 4: the orgy of action we deserve (review)

The saga carried by Keanu Reeves, more Christlike than ever, still manages to surpass itself.

As part of its Friday blockbuster evening, Canal + will unveil this evening, for the first time on television (and encrypted), the latest opus of John Wick. A sequel that is worth the detour, and not only because it was filmed in the French capital. Here is our review.

How did we get here ? How John Wicka B series film, certainly very well done, could it have led to the most emblematic action franchise (with Impossible mission) of the last ten years, with ever crazier sequels doubling the box office of the previous episode to accumulate $584 million in revenue worldwide? “When we finished the first film, we were convinced that no one would be interested, all these head shots, the dog getting killed…”the director confided to us Chad Stahelksi in Premiere.

9 years later, John Wick is still there. He’s been shot hundreds of times, hit, crashed, hit by car, but nothing helps, he’s indestructible. He even survived falling from the roof of the Continental Hotel at the end of Chapter 3 (subtitled Parabellum). And we find him totally revamped at the start of John Wick: Chapter 4where Baba Yaga continues her insatiable quest for revenge, now directed against the Great Table, the one that controls everything and is the cause of her worries.

John Wick turns the tables

John Wick does everything to die, though. After killing 77 guys (yes, there are people who keep score) in the first film because someone killed his dog (“not just any dog“, he will retort), the anti-hero played by Keanu Reeves shot a member of the Great Table, Santino D’Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), in the sacred enclosure of the Continental Hotel at the end of the 2nd film. Excommunicated by this secret crime society, with hordes of hitmen on his trail, he continued to cheat death in the 3rd chapter, where even Mark Dacascos did not do the weight in front of him.

As if to digest it all, John Wick 4, by far the longest episode of the saga (2h50), begins with a long introduction. Mr. Wick prepares his counterattack with the help of the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), and visits the new Elder (Saïd Taghmaoui did not return) before flying to his friend Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada), the manager of the Continental Hotel in Osaka. Meanwhile, a new antagonist enters the scene: the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), an eminent member of the High Table, very angry against Winston Scott (Ian McShane) and Charon (Lance Reddick, unfortunately died a few days before the film’s release). Of course, he thinks he can solve the John Wick problem by calling on another seasoned killer (apparently he hasn’t seen the first three films…).

Bets held

After this 30-minute preliminary, we return to the basics of the saga, with an orgy of action and violence lasting more than 2 hours passing through Japan, Berlin and Paris. John Wick continues its methodical genocide, massacring all opponents in its path. As per usual ? Yes. This murderous litany, quite redundant it must be admitted, is tiring. But if we’re still here after 4 films, it’s because we like it, right? Do we blame Ethan Hunt for doing ever crazier stunts with each episode of Impossible mission ?

As for Impossible missionthe repetitive aspect of John Wick isn’t a problem as long as each new film outperforms the previous one. And once again, from this point of view the bet is met. Always more fights, always more headshotsnew ideas for staging, nourished by the locations and the sets (a sequence shot filmed from the ceiling in an apartment under construction, a Dantesque fight on the stairs of Montmartre…), and also new skills for John Wick who displays his mastery of the nunchaku and his art of car-fu: yes we can drive in a skid and spin at Place de l’Etoile, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other to pull the trigger and take out guys with shovels.

John Wick 4 also succeeds in the bet of one-upmanship thanks to its casting. In the first film, Keanu Reeves played hands with Alfie Allen and Adrianne Palicki. Then he faced Common and Ruby Rose in 2. And Mark Dacascos in 3. There, his opponents are of yet another caliber, with theact Scott Adkins (One Shot) and the legend Donnie Yen (Ip Man), without forgetting Marko Zarora little-known but damn impressive martial arts specialist and actor from Chile who plays the Marquis’ henchman.

Suspension of disbelief

As Impossible mission, John Wick is also based on the famous “consensual suspension of disbelief”, a concept named two centuries ago but which has never been used so much in the analyzes of works of fiction. We have to accept that John Wick can survive all these blows, all these bullets, all these falls. We must accept that there is not the slightest policeman in Paris, but hundreds of hired killers ready to appear on every street corner, guided by the voice of a radio (as in Warriors of the Night by Walter Hill). Or that mafiosi could organize a meeting at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. We must accept that a Porte des Lilas – Sacré Coeur route passes through the Arc de Triomphe. That a blind man could be one of the best killers on the planet. And that Bill Skarsgård is a French nobleman, even if he doesn’t know how to pronounce “Centre Pompidou”. That’s what we call movie magic, right?

Obviously, John Wick has its limits. Character with a psychology as reduced as his dialogues, whose catchphrase consists of responding “Yeah” to almost all questions, he is only saved by his mythology. And we are still waiting to know more about the past of the man whose real name is Jardani Jovanović. But we can only bow to the energy of Keanu Reeves, more Christ-like than ever, who fights like Tom Cruise against the test of time to bring action cinema to life at a rarely seen level and make us want to go to the cinema. And to return there.

The trailer for John Wick 4 :

We met Keanu Reeves’ French understudy on John Wick 4