Keanu Reeves avenges his dead puppy and takes on the Russian mafia.
My first thought was that this might be a goofy action-movie pastiche that would use a puppy as a story hook the same way the film Keanu used a kitten. It turned out that John Wick was serious--dead serious. And it worked because I was able to take it seriously, even with its bizarre world-building and absurdities. It was an easy-going revenge flick dripping in style and grit, fully loaded with impressive action choreography and gunplay. It wound up becoming a new all-time favorite because the story, so simple and clean, worked.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW
It Was More Than a Puppy
John Wick begins in media res, in a scene at the movie's end. We don't know what happened up to that point, and we see nothing that's particularly exciting. It's a bit ironic that this great action movie doesn't start with action--it starts with our title character at his most wounded, literally bleeding his guts out as he pulls out a cellphone and watches a video of his dead wife. Within a few minutes, we already understand a few key things about John Wick: he's involved in something violent and dangerous, and he had a wife once who is now gone. When the title screen hits, we already have a few key story questions that become hooks: who is this guy? What happened to him?
Going back to the beginning, we are then shown John Wick's daily routine, which is somber, slow, peaceful even. There's no real action here either, but we see that he's alone and in mourning. This in itself becomes a conflict, and it's something we see in Keanu Reeve's performance, which takes these wordless scenes and exudes grief and pain out of everyday activities. Even watching him pour coffee looks ritualistic.
Before long, he gets the message from his dead wife and a delivery. To help him move on, he's given a puppy to take care of. It becomes his last remnant of a happier time. He's given hope, purpose, and something to live for (and all of this is explicitly defined later when Wick is tied to a chair, shouting at Viggo the reasons why it was more than a dog and why he has to go through with his vengeance).
These opening scenes may seem like the slowest portion of the film, but it's the most important. This is where all the heart is. The script and performers assign meaning to puppy, which in turn ties to a character who we see is in pain. We already feel something for Wick, and we care for him and his puppy.
So how to do you create a kick-ass action movie out of this? You take away the last things Wick has. Upon doing so, the film elicits outrage. You feel for Wick when he's beaten down and left with nothing. And for the rest of the movie, you root for him when he rises back up and gets payback. What we have with this film is a very simple but effective fall-rise arc. And with the use of the puppy as a personal attachment with deeper meaning, the film succeeds eliciting empathy for the main character. It does all of this within twenty minutes--that leaves another hour-plus for pure action.
Buried Remains
There is a mythic quality to these films. Part of it may be in the simplest of scenes--one in which Wick buries his lost puppy, and another in which he unearths the tools of his past life from his basement. There is an implicit irony to these scenes as they happen in such close proximity--Wick has to bury something he loved and lost, but he must also dig up something he previously buried and thought he left behind. The whole movie (and series) winds up revolving around Wick's inability to escape his past or let go. There's a literal underworld that keeps dragging him back into the fold, making it impossible for him to have nice things. He becomes the Boogeyman everybody talks about.
With the mystique of the film's underworld, it has a few world-building quirks that I've never seen (or perhaps can't recall right now) in other films. In Wick's world, there is some overarching criminal authority built on unspoken rules of conduct and civility--we see it shown (never told) as Wick interacts with his contacts and old friends. It seems like everybody at the Continental knows him--he's achieved legendary status through deeds we never really see or hear about. But we can tell it's significant based on the reputation he has with the high-rollers around him, and the fear he instills in experienced gangsters like Viggo. Through the reactions of other characters, the scant stories they tell about Wick being a Boogeyman who can kill with a pencil, we understand that Wick is a guy you don't mess with.
The places Wick goes to are hardly normal. The Russian mafia seems to always hang out in huge buildings with European facades and stuffy interiors where there are books, booze, cigars, and women. When Iosef is at the club, he's hanging out in its lowest level, which looks less like a usable pool and more like a underground river with vaulted brick ceilings. On top of all that, the mafia performs many operations beneath an elaborately-decorated church. On one hand, there is a sense of class to all these places, but they're simply masks for the underlying filth, crime, and violence that follows the mafia in all its activities. It follows Wick as well, and the Continental hotel achieves the same contrast--there are rules, codes, pleasantries, but Perkins and Marcus both violate those barriers to bring out Wick's violent, uncivil side. This generates the theme of civility vs savagery throughout the film, but even on an aesthetic level, it has a way of adding layers of myth over the criminal underworld. It's all the same reasons why I enjoyed the Noir anime series (and really, Noir and Wick seem to be cut from the same cloth somehow. If I had to write fan fiction for both, I'd mash them up in a shared universe just for kicks. Wick vs Mireille vs Kirika would be an epic gunfight).
What really pushes this movie (and its sequel) into "mythic" territory is what I see in common with another mythic figure: Kratos, from the God of War video games. Both Wick and Kratos lost their loved ones (different reasons--Kratos lost his family by his own rage, but Wick is dragged into things because people just won't leave well enough alone). Both characters seek revenge against higher powers. Both are subject to the rules and whims of higher authorities (as Kratos is punished and de-powered by Zeus, Wick is subject to the rules of "management" and runs the risk of "ex communicado" in the sequels).
Attributing Wick as a Boogeyman (aka Baba Yaga) makes him synonymous with a ghostly figure who stalks his prey, catches them unaware, and wreaks unbelievable havoc on his enemies. Kratos was always a blunt instrument who ravaged Olympus with sheer brute strength and rage--Wick is much more subtle, and with his slick hairstyle and elegant suits, he comes off as a more nuanced, silent, mysterious figure. It's perfect for a nightclub that looks like it's sitting on the River Styx, or later in Rome where there's a party on top of ancient catacombs. Parallels are drawn between the criminal underworld and the mythological underworld, and with Wick's thirst for vengeance, I can't help but to think of his continuous hellish descent as something ripped out of a Greek tragedy.
In the end, it's not just the puppy that goes into the ground, or Wick's off-screen wife. He descends into the ground often as well, so he can rise in the underworld.
Show Us Where It Hurts
He becomes a specter in his own way. Even though he bleeds and suffers, his sheer skill makes him nearly invulnerable. This would normally be a problem for a movie, since invincible characters don't elicit tension. You know they survive in the end (and we know Wick lives long enough to find himself rounded in some loading dock somehow), so you know his scenes at the nightclub, warehouse, and safehouse won't amount to him dying.
And yet, we are glued to his every move for a few good reasons:
- This is an action film, and what sells it the most is the choreography. For films, this works because it becomes a visual art rooted in performance, skilled gunplay, and the camera's tracking (which is all exceptional in the film). We become wowed by what we see.
- The film is just slathered in style, thanks to the steady cinematography, the unique camera angles, the neon-lighting. It's always interesting to look at, even in between the action. Once again, this is a visual trait that benefits the film.
- John Wick may be a Boogeyman, but his fights rarely go perfectly. His first big fight scene at his own house goes pretty smoothly--he succeeds in dispatching every enemy, but we have brief tension when a cop comes snooping around (this becomes another opportunity to showcase Wick's mystique as the cop spots the bodies, asks if he's still working, then backs away--we are shown that Wick has a reputation that goes above the law). In the nightclub, he is stabbed in the gut and thrown off a mezzanine--he limps back to the hotel to be healed by a doctor, but not without the warning that his stitches could rip open again. So for the next round of action scenes, we see that he puts his own flesh and mortality at risk (especially when Perkins repeatedly punches him in his wound, presumably tearing it open again). In the following sequences, Wick is hit by a car or two, and is captured and beaten. He loses his allies and is betrayed by Viggo. It takes all this effort just to get to Iosef--everything seems to conspire to turn on Wick and kill him, and this is what makes the story compelling even if you know his sheer skill will win out in the end. It's the challenge and struggle that makes this work.
- On the flipside of the above, there's another reason why it's exciting to watch Wick even when you know he'll live on in the end--when he does overcome his challenges and get back up, you are pumped to see him take out the bad guys (because we've been onboard with him from frame one) and we are interested to see exactly how he's going to get Iosef (and then Viggo) in the end. When we do see it all unfold, we become wowed by what he does.
Details Matter
What makes this film most palatable is not in how much is told to us with the dialogue, but how much is unspoken. So much of the film is shown to us and not told, and it works perfectly for many reasons.
- As mentioned in detail above, everybody's reactions to the mere mention of Wick paints him as a legend without having to explain away who Wick is and why he's so feared. By seeing the reaction, we understand.
- The rules and mechanics of management and the underworld are never explained in detail. We see Wick give out these gold coins--since these aren't ordinary currency, we understand that this is something exclusive to the Continental and the powers that be. When we see the things he uses this money on (cleaners, a hotel stay, a doctor who doesn't ask questions, a drink even), we see that there's an entire infrastructure operating invisible to the rest of society. Is it plausible? The film makes it look plausible, and that's all we need to see.
- Codes and rules are hardly ever recited to us. All we hear is something along the lines of "don't do business in the hotel," but since we know whose these people are and what they do, we know that business doesn't mean mergers and such. When Perkins breaks those rules, we see the consequences, so we see that the higher powers have the pull and means to enforce their rules. Wick respects and obeys these standards, which not only shows us his place in this world, but also helps characterize him even further--he's a man who can show discipline, restraint, and honor.
- And yet, we see at least two characters who chose to disrespect the rules: Iosef and Perkins. Iosef in particular is a punk and a coward--these traits are never told to us, but are shown in the way he whines, pouts, runs and hides. We already want to see him knocked off because he killed Wick's puppy--as the movie goes on, he just digs his grave deeper as he fumbles around. Perkins blatantly says "f**k management" and does whatever she wants to, killing one of Wick's allies in the process. Unsurprisingly, she pays for her disrespect. Little more needs to be said--all of this plays out before our eyes.
John Wick proves that you don't need much to make a great action-movie experience. As great as it is to see a movie loaded with pyrotechnics, special effects, and the like, Wick pulls it off with just a bunch of guys with guns in interesting locations going through fantastic stunt choreography, and filmed with style. But it all works because of the script, and the clean way it shows us the story instead of shoving exposition down our throats. It all unfolds in a way that lets us become drawn to the character's pain, before we follow him on his rampage and root for him to overcome his enemies and finally find peace.
Of course, with the sequels Wick may never truly find peace. His future struggles show how he continues to dig himself deeper into his own personal hell, unable to escape the past. But one can always watch the first film on its own merits, since it reaches satisfying closure. Wick got his payback, adopted a new dog--there's nothing more gratifying than to see that last shot where he's finally able to walk away with his business completed.
