John Wick (2014) is one of my all time favorite action revenge movies. This movie was directed by Chad Stahelski, even though he directed it with David Leitch who was given a producer title. Only a few movies are known to have two official directors and this one was not granted an exception. Below is my John Wick (2014) movie review
The movie centers around a retired assassin named John Wick (played by Keanu Reeves) living a simple life when he gets pulled back in by a mob who killed his puppy. As far as movie premises go, this one is as simple as it gets. However, unbeknownst to the Russian mob who tried to kill him, Wick is a highly trained individual with a wide assortment of weapons at his disposal. Needless to say, once Wick comes out of his retirement, he kills everybody standing in his way.
Once the action starts, it never stops. Each scene is beautifully shot and fast-paced, with some short scenes of dialogue thrown in to explain the backstory. The movie knows we are here to see some great action and it doesn’t disappoint. According to Reeves, about 90% of the stunts in the movie were done by him. He was able to accomplish this by training 8 hours per day for 4 months on everything from hand combat to handling multiple weapons. This really shows in the movie because the scenes are well lit, nicely choreographed, and very intense. The scenes are not shaky (usually used to hide a flow in the actor’s ability to fight). Instead they are fluid with many long takes of Wick using his guns. He is also taking down guys in hand to hand combat.
In the movie, Wick is depicted as taking a lot of hits, showing him as being a normal human being who can actually receive quite a beating before slowing down. Initially the movie was supposed to have an old guy in his 60s as the main character, but this was later changed to a younger man with a complicated past (which shows its toll on him).
Overall the movie is absolutely insane. It doesn’t hold back on intense action and blood. The director (who was also Reeves’ stunt double in the Matrix movies) has a lot of experience in martial arts. This definitely is evident in the fluid fight scenes throughout the movie. This is the first movie in the planned trilogy. The movie has a lot of heart and it truly shows the huge effort put into making it.
If there was one thing I didn’t like about it is the fact that the villain was a stereotypical Russian mobster that didn’t have a lot of character development. He is among many such villians that we have seen in the action movies and this makes him very forgettable. Other than that, the movie is great. The focus is on action and we got plenty of that.
Highly recommended for everyone!
Thanks for reading my John Wick (2014) movie review
