When a couple of young gangsters take a liking to the car of the recently widowed “John Wick” (Keanu Reeves) they little expect that he will be able to put up much resistance as they enter his home at night and pinch it - beating him up and killing his dog at the same time. What is clear to arch-villain “Viggo” (Michael Nyqvist), though, is that his hot-headed son (Alfie Allen) has gone and stirred up one hell of an hornet’s nest. To try to save his son from what would appear to be certain death, he tries to enlist the help of assassin “Marcus” (Willem Dafoe) but “Wick” is armed with an whole array of weaponry and some invaluable gold coins that suggest he is part of an international network that has rules! Woe-betides anyone who crosses them, or their enforcer “Winston” (Ian McShane). It’s end-to-end stuff, this, with loads of brutal action right from the start. Reeves does regurgitate his “Neo” role from “The Matrix” (1999) a little but here the stunt choreography is nowhere near as repetitive and the cat and mouse dynamic excites more naturally than some more video-game style of adventures where the scenarios play, reset and repeat all too often. Reeves hasn’t much by way of meaningful dialogue to worry about as the action elements unfold, he just needs to be as useful with a surgical needle as he is with guns, knives and trashed furniture. It does rather rush things at the end, with a few significant sub-plots terminated unimaginatively, but this is still a solid and entertaining revenge thriller that gets the mix of mayhem and carnage just about right.
