It is said that the most influential public speakers exude a charisma and confidence that, regardless what is said, commands the attention of their audience. It is very much the same with movies. John Wick, the first film by David Leitch and Chad Stahelskki, is a show-stopping example of why. Leitch and Stahelskki don’t for a second stutter, directing their debut with a swagger rare even among the Hollywood elite. Most action movies today are tonally uncertain and can’t commit to a unified vision, as though there are too many hands in the creative pot. In sharp, amazing contrast, John Wick is the opposite. It knows what it is, what it wants to say, what it wants to do, and how to do it with fidelity, talent, but most of all, fun. It’s an action movie that doesn’t pretend to be anything else, skillfully constructed to deliver what’s promised by its conceit. Not a second goes by that doesn’t somehow prime the action engine, and when the film hits fourth gear (which takes all of 15 minutes), John Wick is a thoroughbred action spectacle that moves at a blistering pace leaving you absolutely breathless.





The hero’s drama is simple. A former hitman named John Wick (Keanu Reeves), famous in the criminal underworld for his unequaled skills as an assassin, is retired. He got out of the game years ago to spend his life with a woman he fell in love with, which is the only reason, the Kolstad’s script notes, criminals ever leave “the life.” When she tragically passes away from an illness, she leaves John a living symbol of her everlasting love for him: a heart-meltingly cute puppy. He doesn’t have to mourn alone. We, like John, love this animal. Who couldn’t? So when punk Russian mobsters led by Game of Thrones star Alfie Allen break into his luxurious modernist home and leave him badly beaten and his cute loving pup dead, we feel a pang of loss and even anger. They came for his car—a beautiful slick black beast of a vehicle, the kind of car that would get people laid in college—but took so much more.



