John Wick: Chapter 4 picks up where we left the iconic John Wick (Keanu Reeves) at the end of the previous installment, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019). Thanks to the Bowery King (the mighty Laurence Fishburne), Wick has recovered from Winston’s (Ian McShane) betrayal and is ready to finish what began at the end of John Wick 2. If you recall, it was then when Wick broke the rules by killing one of the High Table’s own on Continental grounds. It was then that John Wick was declared excommunicado.
In John Wick-ese, “excommunicado” makes you a hunted man.
What to do when the whole of the criminal underground is after your head?
Well, like all great action legends, John Wick doesn’t say much, but in an early Chapter 4 scene, he does lay out his master plan to escape the High Table: He says, “I’m going to kill them all.”
While “killing them all” is aspirational, it is also like trying to count the stars. So with the help of his frenemy Winston, Wick comes up with a plan to return to civilian life and the quiet mourning of his beloved wife: He will challenge the leader of the High Table, the Marquis (Bill Skarsgård), to a duel.
Qualifying for this duel requires membership in a family and a crest, which Wick has to make happen while thousands of criminals seek the $20 million (and climbing) bounty for his head.
I don’t want to waste too much time explaining the plot. The world-building, the mythology, the ancient rules and rituals are all there. Instead, let’s talk about what makes John Wick: Chapter 4 awesome.
In the hands of lesser filmmakers, Chapter 4 (and the previous chapters) would be a numbing experience. The difference between well-choreographed action sequences that lift you out of your seat and well-choreographed action sequences that make you feel like you’re watching someone else play a videogame is your investment in the characters. Michael Bay choreographs action sequences like few others. Nevertheless, I still go numb during those Transformers movies because I don’t care. With John Wick, you always care, which makes the action beyond thrilling.
We care because we understand the basic human desire for revenge. We sympathize with a man who’s been wronged. We want to see justice. Better than that, and this is especially true in Chapter 4, we not only care about John Wick, we frequently care about the person trying to kill him. When your sympathies are torn between both combatants engaged in a duel to the death, when you’re pulled in competing directions, your emotional investment red-lines, and that’s part of what makes this franchise so special.
While we loathe the Marquis, that’s not true for Caine (a spectacular Donnie Yen), the blind warrior blackmailed by the Marquis to kill Wick. Caine and Wick are both honorable men and friends. The tension this creates is glorious.
The same is true for Mr. Nobody (a dynamite Shamier Anderson), a more-than worthy opponent governed by his own code.
Thanks largely to Ian McShane’s electric presence and seething dignity, you cannot help but root for Winston, even though his agenda is always his own.
Better still, it’s all there in Chapter 4; everything we were promised in the previous chapters comes to a head, including a satisfying sense of finality that will hopefully remain final.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of these decades-long commitments to the likes of Scream, Star Wars, Fast & Furious, Indiana Jones, Star Trek, Rocky, Saw, X-Men, Alien, Halloween… John Wick turns nine this year. John Wick: Chapter Four sticks the landing. As much as I love this series, I’m all in favor of calling it a day.
Obviously, the John Wickiverse will march on until the end of time with spin-offs and sequels, and prequels. A barrel of these things have already been planned. But as far as John Wick’s story, if Reeves and director (of all four) Chad Stahelski want to leave behind a near-perfect mythological journey, they will leave Mr. Wick where he is.
Unfortunately, in this fascist era, it’s necessary to point out what isn’t in John Wick: Chapter 4, and that’s the cancer of woke. Thankfully, through all four films, a spell has been cast that has never been broken by the wretched stink of politics. There are no lectures, shaming, virtue-signaling, identity politics, sexual fetishes, or emasculation… In its fourth chapter, John Wick remains true to what it has been from the beginning: a franchise driven by universal themes about love, loyalty, justice, duty, friendship, human nature, damnation, family, and redemption.
John Wick: Chapter 4 isn’t perfect. There’s a lot of fat in that first hour, scenes that go on longer than necessary. But if this is truly goodbye, you can’t fault the desire to linger.
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