John Wick 4 movie review: Brutal and beautiful, Keanu Reeves film is a visceral masterpiece

John Wick 4 movie review: John Wick is back, and he's taking names, kicking butts, and using endlessly creative methods to dispatch his impeccably dressed adversaries. The fourth instalment, directed again by Chad Stahelski picks up right where the third movie left off, with Keanu Reeves' laconic hitman on the run from the High Table, the quasi-religious cabal that lords over this underworld and the source of all woe for the titular hitman. Beaten and battered after the third movie's ending, John wants revenge from the High Table and has been recuperating under the care of Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne). But as fans of the franchise know, there's no rest for the wicked, and John has to go off on an all-out assault on the High Table.

This time around, the film serves up a fresh set of allies and foes, each with their own unique brand of cool. Leading the pack of bad guys is Bill Skarsgård's Marquis Vincent de Gramont, a member of the High Table and the perfect foil to John. While our beloved protagonist abides by the assassin code of honour that this underworld operates by, De Gramont is all about flouting the rules whenever it suits him. While John had to earn his place through sheer skill and ability, De Gramont only got in because of his celebrated heritage.

John is a man of few words. De Gramont on the other hand makes grand pronouncements like (I am paraphrasing, mind you) how those who believe in second chances have failed.

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Shamier Anderson plays a bounty hunter calling himself Nobody with a cute and fierce canine emotional support animal companion with a penchant of chomping down men where it hurts the most: in the crotch. Nobody often helps John get out of scrapes but not out of any goodness of his heart.

There's the great Donnie Yen as a blind assassin and old friend to John called Caine who uses his honed hearing sense, walking stick, and gadgets to detect and destroy enemies with an almost sardonic ease. He is forced to go after John after Gramont threatens his daughter's life. He is torn between his loyalty to John and his obligation to the High Table, but you wouldn't know it by Yen's performance, serving up stoic badassery with a side of relish.

The legendary Hiroyuki Sanada plays Shimazu Koji, the manager of the Osaka Continental and an old friend of John who despite the protestations of his daughter (Akira, played by Rina Sawayama) harbours John, though confronting him with the question that has been on many a mind since forever: Is there an endgame here? Or is John doomed to inhabit this purgatory of ever-deadly goons trying to get a piece of him (and those millions of dollars; $40 million by last count) and he carving a path through them until he eventually succumbs? As Ian McShane's Winston in his infinite wisdom tells him, even the dreaded Baba Yaga cannot kill everyone and will run out of bullets before the High Table runs out of heads.

In many ways, John Wick 4 is the most ruminative this franchise has ever been, delving deeper into the world of assassins, the morality of their actions, and their motivations. Unlike some others in this trade, John Wick is not a cold-blooded killer, but a man driven by grief over his wife's death and seeking revenge for the murder of his dog. He's a man with nothing left to lose, and even he may struggle to articulate his motivations for even staying alive.

Of course, that doesn't mean John has gone soft. Quite the opposite, in fact. He shoots, smashes, slams, stabs, cuts, slashes, and nunchucks his way through countless hordes and hordes of goons sent by High Table's face in the film that is Marquis. It wouldn't be a John Wick movie without some jaw-dropping set pieces, and the film delivers in spades. The action is brutal and beautiful, and on a whole new level in John Wick 4.

Also Read:Explained: Elements that make John Wick the definitive action movie experience

Indeed, it far surpasses anything else that has come before in the franchise, and I do not say that lightly. From a thrilling half-hour sequence in Osaka that involves the use of (and this list isn't exhaustive at all), hands, crossbows, pistols, revolvers, assault rifles, knives, swords, and nunchucks, to John evading a city-worth of assassins, and my personal favourite, a dreamy, almost ethereal hand-to-hand brawl against the German head of the High Table Killa (Scott Adkins) in a Berlin nightclub amid swaying dancers... it has all the makings of an all-time great action film, eclipsed perhaps only by Mad Max: Fury Road.

From New York to Berlin to Paris, each locale provides a new canvas for Stahelski to deliver visceral mayhem. The choreography is so slick and stunt-work so incredible that they will make your head spin.

John Wick 4 is also a gorgeous-looking film, even beyond the fights and clever camera wizardry. From the neon lights of Osaka to the fiery reds and oranges of a Moroccan desert, John Wick 4 is a veritable symphony of hues. Many important moments suspiciously transpire during the golden hour. The stunning, elegiac imagery here is not something you expect in films like these. You would find yourself wanting to pause to take in all in. I know I did.

I never thought I'd say this about a 169-minute movie, but I want to see John Wick 4 again as soon as possible.

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