Chad Stahelski’s John Wick: Chapter 4 streamlines a mythos in accordance with its original construct that is a sweeping, if indulgent violent escapade with shades of Sergio Leone and David Lean to propel a lengthy brutality with surprising clarity.
A new bratty foe from the High Table (Bill Skarsgard) is on tap for Keanu Reeves’ jaded, but sensibly unrelenting eponymous figure (his best action part since Neo of The Matrix). In his e-communication in order to finish the level a bit of heavy labor from the Big Apple to Japan to Berlin and Paris must be accomplished. Oh, there are much weapons from nunchaku to arrows to explosive artillery to be displayed in a veritable barrage of CGI and stunts having a striking complexity.
Reeves develops Wick in ways that fit into the evolution of the series from the recent Parabellum and it works even with recollection to make everything with the
Continental happen with a careful precision even with much arterial spray and thugs flying. The blind Caine (Donnie Yes) who considers his daughter is a meaningful character in a roster that includes Ian McShane as Winston, Lawrence Fishburne’s Q of a Bowery King, as well as Shamir Anderson’s Mr Nobody and Hiroyuki Sanada as a valuable ally.