When director Chad Stahelski sets out to make a new John Wick film, he usually collects some badasses and then goes to town on the concept of action. Stahleski is a former stunt performer and kickboxer, so he knows what he is doing in this realm. Some have complained about the last film in the series John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, but honestly, I loved it because I got to see two of the absolute titans of Pencak Silat from Gareth Evans’ films The Raid and The Raid 2: Berendal, Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayan Ruhian in the film. Ruhian was so amazing that Evans put him in The Raid 2: Berandal after killing him in the big boss battle of the first Raid film and never bothered to explain how he got into the second film. Evans realized that he was just such an asset that he shrugged, gave him a new name, and didn’t care if anyone noticed. 

The point of a John Wick film is the fighting and the setpieces—all the martial arts and magnificence of so many different kinds of murder. Of course, there’s the character stuff with Keanu Reeves’ long-suffering Wick and the tragedies that set all this in motion, but you would be kidding yourself if you didn’t think that the fighting is what makes this infernal engine run. The internal combustion of any John Wick film is the ongoing massacre and Wick finding a way to fight against all odds to stay alive. It’s a weird tension between the idea that John Wick is fighting for his life against all odds, and at the same time, he is the Baba Yaga, basically The bogeyman, and is an unkillable killing machine. Yes, he’s in the same category as Michael Myers, except he has a better sense of style. It is to Stahleski’s and the writers’ credit – Michael Finch, Shay Hatten, and the original creator of the series and character Derek Kolstad –  that this whole series flies as well as it has for four films. 

You could complain that it is essentially the same film over and over again. Still, while the central conceit is the same, the differences are new locales, new action setpieces, SO MUCH MURDER, and Keanu Reeves wearing the heck out of his latest suit. Does the suit always look the same? Technically? Yes, but Reeves wears it like a king would wear coronation robes and with a tasteful humility and essential goodness of character that keeps all the fight scenes from ever becoming something that isn’t entertaining. 

There’s an aura of fantasy about the film that keeps things light. In JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4, the film’s usually more subliminal sense of humor makes its way to the forefront. Reeves is more of a droll comedian in this one, including some seriously hilarious physical humor. I’m serious. It had the entire audience rolling and cheering at the SXSW premiere. One of the most outrageous conceits of film is the blind character who suddenly does something only a sighted person usually does. For example, consider Al Pacino driving a car in Scent of A Woman. Ah, 90s films. But Donnie Yen plays a Table assassin, Caine, who was blinded, and he does it so well. The film has little notes of how Caine continues killing people; they’re dope and entirely believable. Also, Donnie Yen is great in the role and simply plays the character without any extraneous effort to show that he is blind, so it is wholly believable.

Other standout characters are Hiroyuki Sanada as Shimazu Koji, in a stunning turn of loyalty and honor, Rina Sawayama as Akira, who has a great face and an even greater bad attitude; Shamier Anderson as the Tracker, funny and equally droll; Scott Adkins as Killa, a giant German dude who is also hilarious, head of the German High Table and seemingly unkillable by virtue of his size. Natalia Tena is wonderful as Katia, John Wick’s adoptive sister and leader of the Ruska Roma. Doing predictably excellent work is Clancy Brown as the Harbinger, Ian McShane as Winston Scott, Laurence Fishburne as the Bowery King, and Lance Reddick as Charon. You can put those three actors in any film, and the film will instantly be more exciting and better because of it. Bill Skarsgård, as the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, isn’t terribly French but does a good job of being the antagonist along the lines of a young arrogant man who wants everything his way or else. 

One of the virtues of a John Wick film is that the action is slower, and you can follow the fighting well. You can see the headshots, which is always fun. The minions of the High Table are all wearing armor, so you can see Wick’s exasperation at having to keep shooting and stabbing them to make sure they die. 

The film is soaked in atmosphere and style. At one point, I was just sitting there marveling at how they must have wet down so much pavement to make each scene look just right. Danish cinematographer Dan Laustsen gets high marks for making the film look so consistently rich and consistently pleasing to the eye. Also, even when it’s dark, and a lot of this film happens in the dark, you can clearly see what is happening unless the filmmakers don’t want you to. 

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 is a mesmerizing symphony of violence and death that is also about friendship, honor, family, and how annoying it is when people refuse to die. A surfeit of style with substance, it refuses to aspire to anything but action excellence with a dramatic core and magnificent performances and therefore succeeds.

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 played as a secret screening at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival. It will be released on March 24, 2023, in theaters & IMAX Only. Make sure to check the rest of our SXSW coverage here.

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Dolores Quintana

Dolores Quintana is an actor and writer living in Los Angeles. She has written for blogs as diverse as Buddyhead, Pocho.com, and The Theatre @ Boston Court. She works as an actor in independent film and both immersive and traditional theatre with Alone: an Existential Haunting, Screenshot Productions, and Native Voices at The Autry.

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