John Wick 4: Going Out Guns Blazing

Full honesty, here: I was not that excited for the fourth John Wick movie. Now, I’m a simple man, I love action movies; and John Wick (the first one) was about as pure an action movie as one could find at the time. A simple set-up supported by not-so-simple action scenes further polished by an intriguing bit of that ever-sexy “lore.” Where John Wick simply settled around a man kicking ass after someone kicks his favorite dog’s ass, the sequels started to become more focused on exploring the lore. The result was some great action movies otherwise hampered by the films’ seeming need to keep expanding a universe that would’ve been just fine without it. Nevertheless, I and the rest of the world continued to eat it up, leading to this moment in time where star, Keanu Reeves, and skilled action director, Chad Stahelski, have released a fourth entry in this surprisingly prosperous franchise.

But still, Parts 2 and 3 of the John Wick franchise were beginning to show a bit of wear into this operation, leading this particular writer to approach the fourth coming of John Wick with a mere “I’ll catch it when I can” sort of energy. Of course, it makes total sense that John Wick: Chapter 4 turns out to be the best entry in the franchise since the first one, finally finding the perfect balance between ridiculous world-building and stupefyingly awesome scenes of dudes shooting the hell out of each other. 

As with the other entries, Chapter 4 more or less continues right after its predecessor as John (once more embodied by a dapper Reeves) finishes his quest against some dudes in the desert that were shown in the last entry — honestly, I don’t remember a lot of the specifics of the last movie except that the Iron Chef guy was awesome. Anyway, the gist is Mr. Wick is somehow still beholden to the powers that be that are The High Table, and baby, they are not happy with John’s recent antics! In comes this entry’s central villain, The Marquis (played with a devilishly silly French accent courtesy of Bill Skarsgård), an equally dapper gentlemen hellbent on making John (and his friends) pay for all the chaos they’ve caused with John’s past revenge-fueled exploits. 

Following the trends of the previous two films, there’s more loreeeee to explore and an introduction of, to this point, never mentioned rules that come into play, but per usual, Chapter 4 boils down to John having to criss-cross international borders while outshooting any poor schmuck that thinks they can take him down. As any watcher of this series knows by now, John is practically untouchable, but the tension of these films isn’t found in the mortality of its protagonist — he’s practically a god built for awesome gunplay — it’s in seeing whether or not Stahelski and his team of stunt performers can pull off the next big action sequence throughout nearly three hours.

“Three goddamn hours!!” you exclaim at me, to which I say “Yeah, dude and it’s fucking sick!” Don’t get me wrong, at the end of the day does a John Wick movie need to be nearly as long as Gone With The Wind? No. But it’s a testament to the absolute skill of Stahelski and his writing duo, Shay Hatten and Michael Finch, that the task of seemingly putting a bow on this franchise (while still introducing a handful of brand new characters) flies by as quick as an assassin's bullet. Like Gareth Evans’ The Raid 2, Stahelski’s embraces the lustful exploration of its world while still ultimately being driven by the urge to craft one cool fight scene after another. Where Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 faltered were in its determination to make us care about its constant introduction of new lore and characters but in this film, the creative team finally realizes that new characters and bits of lore might be cool, but seeing it all get shot to hell in increasingly awesome ways is cooler. It’s hard to think of a fourth entry finding new ground to tread in terms of action sequences — and John Wick has certainly always had at least one ingenious set-piece in each of its entries — but Chapter 4 delivers the damn goods with moments that embrace the franchise’s increasingly video game-like vibe. 

When a shootout on horses in a Lawrence of Arabia-like vista only takes up the first two minutes of your three-hour actioneer, you know the creators are cooking with gas. Like a video game, or if you want to go for a more classy simile, an orchestral piece, Chapter 4 grows bigger and bigger from set-piece to set-piece as John must traverse a new, beautifully realized environment nearly every hour, with a whole host of specialized goons to take on, ranging from literal armor-suited minions to explosive-shotgun wielding assassins. Each act also essentially comes with its own mini-boss, each performed with impeccable glee from its host of action-movie greats. As the best conductors or video game designers do, Stahelski drives this film to a bombastic final hour that, in this case, becomes a non-stop shootout across Paris. He and Reeves get to put John in a variety of shooting challenges, each one cooler than the last (with a shootout held in a random apartment, in particular, stealing the show due to its unique God’s eye perspective). With Dan Laustsen’s nimble camerawork, Chapter 4 captures impressive action maneuvers with surprising bouts of physical comedy, as Reeves and Stahelski finally perfect their franchise’s formula of combining the ridiculous with the impressive.

Of course, much of the film can’t happen if John Wick doesn’t have many new bad guys to fight, but the latest film has that covered with the introduction of the franchise’s strongest batch of new characters. From Donnie Yen’s hilariously fun turn as a sort of persistent frenemy of John to Clancy Brown’s small, but always hearty, role as a character that acts as, essentially, the film’s referee, everyone brings the right stuff and it’s hard to pick just one favorite. Well, actually, that’s false; because it’s definitely Shamier Anderson’s star-making turn as a mysterious bounty tracker hunting John, who steals the show. Playing his character like a modern day cowboy, Anderson seems to have walked straight off the set of a Western, complete with a modern take on a lever rifle. With such an influx of characters — and that’s not including the returning likes of Ian McShane’s mischievous Winston, Lance Reddick’s (RIP) Charon, and Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King — it’s not always easy to care for them or their quickly introduced emotional challenges, but that hardly matters when each performer makes a lasting impression in little time. It’s a bit beautiful that in this climactic entry, the John Wick franchise digs deeper into its love of the genre by letting some under-appreciated greats like Yen, Scott Adkins, and even Marko Zaror have their moments in the sun on the biggest stage possible.

Even so, this is still Keanu’s show, and once again, everyone’s favorite assassin delivers the goods. Per usual, the veteran actor makes hurling and twirling with goons look easy, even at the ripe age of being 50-something, and while a few of his line deliveries walk the line between dopey and cool (an intentional angle I’m sure), the actor still manages to surprise you with the few moments he and his character get to sit with his still fresh grief. After all, isn’t the John Wick franchise ultimately a portrait series of a man dealing with personal tragedy—just with more guns? 

Whatever lens you view the series through, it all ultimately comes down to what everyone expects out of a John Wick movie: kick-ass fight scenes anchored by the always-down-for-it, Reeves. Chapter 4 delivers that and then some, and then some more for good measure. No one can really say if this is the final time we’ll see ol’ Wick kick some ass. But whether it’s the end or somehow another beginning, one thing remains clear: to the tune of Fishburne’s Bowery King, get Reeves and Stahelski a gun, and let them cook up something fierce. 

4.5/5