This article was originally published in The Daily UW on March 30, 2023. Read it here.
Earlier this month, I rewatched the first “John Wick” film for the umpteenth time. What stood out to me this time — beyond the impeccably choreographed action, the disarmingly funny and endlessly quotable script, and the pitch-perfect musical cues — was how lean the film was.
Clocking in at just an hour and 40 minutes, the first “Wick” accomplishes more character and world building in a single film than entire franchises can, as efficiently as Keanu Reeves’ titular assassin shoots and slices his way through hordes of enemies.
While the sequels have doubled down on expanding the franchise’s dense mythology, that has come at the cost of the original film’s “less is more” approach, and the latest entry — “John Wick: Chapter 4” — seems altogether built around the word “more.”
At nearly three hours, the fourth film is a far, far cry from the first. What was once a simple tale about a grieving man avenging his slain puppy is now a sprawling, worldwide epic, taking us deep into the arcane rituals and power politics of entire societies of assassins.
Though “Chapter 4” often buckles under all that narrative weight, it remarkably remains a largely entertaining watch, not least because of Reeves’ undying charisma and stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski’s gift for staging brutal violence as high art.
Picking up not long after 2019’s “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum,” the film opens with a “Kill Bill” style training scene of Wick practicing his strikes through bloodied knuckles. He’s hiding in New York City’s tunnels with Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King, preparing for his battle against the High Table — a sort of United Nations for elite killers whose higher-ups betrayed him in the previous film.
Those hoping for a “The Matrix” reunion between Reeves and Fishburne will be disappointed. Fishburne is strangely absent for much of the film’s hefty runtime, despite the ending of “Chapter 3” teasing some major alliance between him and Reeves.
Rather, most of “Chapter 4” focuses on the relationship between Wick and Winston (Ian McShane), the silver-tongued manager of the assassin-run Continental Hotel. If there’s one area where the film succeeds narratively, this would be it. McShane is once again terrific as the stoic, kingly Winston, whose dynamic with Wick has always teetered between the brotherly and the parental, and which takes on a more poignant air in this film.
Winston is given significantly more focus in “Chapter 4,” given the story’s preoccupation with the inside baseball of the High Table. Indeed, this chapter often feels more like an ensemble piece about the franchise’s ever-expanding rogues’ gallery than solely about John Wick himself.
Among those joining that ensemble this time around are Hiroyuki Sanada as Shimazu, manager of the Continental in Osaka, Japan, as well as Japanese-British pop star Rina Sawayama as his daughter, Akira.
The two make a hell of an impression during the film’s visually dazzling first hour, which features a delightfully excessive action sequence once again set in a neon-tinged hall of mirrors — evidently Stahelski’s favorite piece of production design. Sawayama is especially impressive in her first feature acting role, equally fierce and empathetic as the bow-and-arrow-wielding Akira. The film certainly could have benefited from giving her more screen time.
The most prominent — and thankfully, best — addition to the cast is mixed martial arts legend Donnie Yen as Caine, a former friend of Wick’s who is forced to hunt the legendary assassin down. Yen is absolutely magnificent both verbally and physically as the blind assassin, playing him with a palpable reluctance and wry wit that grounds the character’s lethality in the weight of his moral dilemma. The film ingeniously incorporates Caine’s blindness into his fight choreography, having Yen search and feel his way through his environments until he catches and kills his targets.
Unfortunately, many of the film’s considerable strengths are often overshadowed by its bloat and lack of focus in other areas. Part of it has to do with its overabundance of characters, not all of whom feel as distinctive and memorable as the first film’s colorful and varied cast. In particular, Shamier Anderson and Scott Adkins play secondary antagonists who feel quite extraneous to the film’s plot, despite both actors turning in charismatic performances.
Amid all the various foes pitted against Wick in the film, the main antagonist of “Chapter 4” is Bill Skarsgård’s Marquis de Gramont, a craven High Table zealot. Sadly, Skarsgård is the film’s weakest link, in a series whose primary villains have gotten progressively less compelling with each installment.
The actor, known best for his brilliantly terrifying embodiment of Pennywise the Clown in the recent adaptation of Stephen King’s “It,” brings the same brand of mustache-twirling, Joker-esque nastiness to his portrayal of the Marquis. Despite this, the character fails to be adequately imposing, and lacks the personal motivation against Wick that made the series’ earlier big bads so interesting to watch.
Furthermore, by centering much of the High Table’s threat solely on Skarsgård’s character, the film curiously lacks the scale and scope demanded by its enormous length and existential stakes. The film’s depiction of the Table as an organization, meanwhile, feels lazy and contrived, with much of the plot hinging on convoluted rules and customs that feel arbitrarily made up rather than purposeful and inventive.
Indeed, this is the first entry in the series not to be written by “Wick” creator Derek Kolstad, and one can feel his replacements Shay Hatten and Michael Finch often fumbling to make the same well-balanced meal out of Kolstad’s original recipe.
Ultimately, those looking for the same visceral thrills that define the “John Wick” title will be more than satisfied — if not overfed — by what “Chapter 4” has to offer. The film features the most extravagant and unrelenting action sequences the series has seen yet, and there’s a sense that Stahelski and his crew have outdone themselves, even with the no-holds-barred craziness they had established with previous entries.
With that comes a more reflective, self-serious tone to the film, which makes this an elegiac and surprisingly conclusive sequel to what is surely one of the greatest action franchises ever created.
If this is indeed the final main entry in the series, audiences reeling from the “Marvel-ization” of cinema will have been gifted with the rare blockbuster franchise that goes out while it’s on top. If not, then, to borrow a catchphrase used between Wick and his friends and enemies alike: “Be seeing you.”
“John Wick: Chapter 4” is currently playing in theaters.
Reach writer Tejus Krishnan at arts@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @tejusk100
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