John Wick Chapter 4
ORIGINALLY REVIEWED 3/23/23
SCORE: 9/10
MATURE CONTENT WARNING: THIS MOVIE HAS BEEN RATED R BY THE MPAA, AND THIS REVIEW CONTAINS DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE AND LANGUAGE THAT SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTURBING.
SYNOPSIS
Six months after being shot by Winston (Ian McShane), John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is continuing his journey to defeating the High Table, by any means necessary. On the way, he lands in Osaka, Japan where he reunites with his old friend, and Osaka’s Continental Manager, Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada). During his visit, the Osaka Continental is overrun by enforcers under the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) who has been given all required materials he needs to kill John, as he promised the High Table. Koji is not the only old friend that John runs into while in Osaka, as he also runs into the blind man Caine (Donnie Yen) whom is “a mutual friend” as Caine describes later, regarding the three men. Caine has been forced by the Marquis into hunting his friend John. Despite claiming he is a free man, with no more ties to the Table, he must hunt John to ensure the safety of his daughter.
SPOILER FREE REVIEW
When I started seeing images and footage of the behind-the-scenes goodies, I was super excited for this movie to say the least. Opening night, I was hooked within two minutes. More on that in the spoiler review. The action in this movie is a prime example of what can happen when a professional stunt double is the director of the movie (Chad Stahelski). With that element, however, comes the biggest issue people online have, the runtime. At two hours and forty-nine minutes, the runtime comes from the extended action sequences. For someone like me, this is perfectly okay, but I can understand how some people may have trouble watching a movie that long. With the passing of Lance Reddick, the time we have with Charon is bitter-sweet, as he continues to be that uplifting soul in the world, yet we no longer have him in real life. The cinematography plays to the action extremely well, and the “neon noir,” as Chad calls it, is always a nice setting to build from. If you are a fan of the John wick series, you can rest easy, and enjoy the thrill ride this movie will take you on.
SPOILER REVIEW
Let me start this section off by addressing what I said I’d cover from the previous section. The movie opened with a monologue delivered by the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne). With John practicing his punches on what looks like a makiwara. This is what drew me in. The sound of John’s punches boomed throughout the theater. There are a few new characters, Koji, Caine, the Marquis Vincent, and a tracker whose name is never revealed, but is referred to as Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson).
Koji and Caine are two more personal characters for John, as we learn that the three men are all old acquaintances. During the attack on the Osaka Continental, we got an extended sword fight which was easily one of my top four fights of the film. Usually, John wick is known for its bumping EDM during fight sequences, which this movie has plenty of, but the lack of music in this scene adds an extra layer of tension, in a way that I personally haven’t felt in any John Wick movie before. After Koji passes from blood loss, Caine makes his way towards John. The two eventually encounter each other in a gun fight, both escaping the encounter with their lives.
Angered by John’s lack of care in his approach, Winston offers him a way to defeat the Marquis and earn his freedom, a High Table duel. Unfortunately, with John no longer being a part of the Ruska Roma, he’ll need to perform a task to get back into the family. Enter the second of my top four fights. John vs Killa Harkan (Scott Adkins).
This whole sequence starts with a game of five card draw between John, Caine, Killa, and Mr. Nobody. John ends up with the dead man’s hand, Caine a four-of-a-kind, and Mr. Nobody with a royal flush. “Each man thinks they have the winning hand,” Killa says, as he flips his cards over to reveal that he has a five-of-a-kind, an impossible hand, and proof of the rigged deck. This kicks into the fighting of this sequence, filled with axes, EDM, and crazy stunts involving a fat suit, that make this quite possibly the wackiest fight in any John Wick film.
Killa meets his demise, and John rejoins the Ruska Roma. Begin act three. This where the last two of my favorite fights comes in. The bird’s eye fight and staircase fight. Before we get to that however, there’s one scene I want to talk about. Winston and the Marquis. This is one of the biggest points of the movie, and truly the bridge into act three. Here we see Winston give the certificate to the Marquis permitting the duel to take place, and instating himself as John’s second. This pulls Winston in deeper than he realized, as the Marquis tells him that the dueler’s second is killed if he loses as well. This recalls back to the first theme set up in the film, of life being out of your hands, despite feeling like you can control it. “Such is life,” as Winston says.
The Marquis and Caine meet with John and Winston as they plan the setting and time of the duel. Which concludes with a pistols duel, at sunrise. With one last trick up his sleeve, the Marquis names Caine as his sponsor, and Caine is now forced to duel John instead. All John must do is survive the night and make it to Sacre Coeur, the place of the duel. The bird’s eye fight is the second big fight of this night, with mostly gun fighting and very little hand to hand. Shot in one continuous take and shows John taking out multiple people with dragon’s breath rounds and a shotgun. The lighting in this shot is incredible, in pair with the in shot lighting by fire stunts. It’s very intriguing to listen to Chad Stahelski talk about this fight, and I’ll link a video of him discussing these fights, in better detail than I ever could down below.
After this fight, John makes his way to the stairs leading up to Sacre Coeur, starting to fight waves of people as he climbs the stairs. Making it between halfway to three quarters of the way up the two-hundred and twenty-two steps, he gets knocked the ENTIRE WAY back down by the Marquis biggest agent throughout the film (Marko Zaror). Caine finds John at the bottom of the steps, and together with the help of Mr. Nobody, they take out the remaining thugs and agents, making their way to the top as the sun begins to rise.
The duel starts off, both Caine and John taking thirty steps away from each other, before turning to fire. They both fire on command, and both hitting the other in the arm. Per rules of dueling, they both take ten steps in, reload, and fire again. Caine shoots John in the shoulder, but gets hit pretty badly in his abdomen. Once again, the two step closer, and on command, Caine shoots John. John drops to the ground, and my body went numb. I didn’t know what was about to happen. The Marquis claims the final shot, as he confirms Caine and his daughter are both free to live normally, as he takes the gun. He reloads, and walks up to John for the kills, but is stopped by Winston.
“You arrogant ***hole, he didn’t shoot,” Winston says. John sits up and shoots the Marquis in the head. John is confirmed free, as he officially won the duel, and walks over to Winston. He asks to be taken home, as he walks away. He removes his belt, and sits on the steps, as the rising sun beams over his face. He has a flashback of him with his wife, as he says her name, and falls over. We fade out and open back to Winston and the Bowery King standing in a graveyard looking over the graves of both Helen and John. “Loving Wife,” and “Loving Husband,” written on their stones.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing throughout this moment, there was no way that John had gone through all this just to die, and with the confirmation of John wick Chapter 5, it’ll be very interesting to see how the story continues…
REST IN PEACE LANCE REDDICK, YOU WERE THE HEART AND SOUL OF THIS SERIES, AND YOU WILL BE DEEPLY MISSED BY YOUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND FANS.
SOURCES: “NEON NOIR” AND A BETTER DISCRIPTION OF THE FIGHTING: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRAdWrnaz10
ALL OTHER QUOTES TAKEN FROM JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4
