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John Wick
John Wick: Butt-kicker. (Photo: Supplied / Treatment: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureMarch 25, 2023

The best way to enjoy the new John Wick movie? With your John Wick friend

John Wick
John Wick: Butt-kicker. (Photo: Supplied / Treatment: Tina Tiller)

Chris Schulz on the nearly three-hours of joy Keanu Reeves’ latest non-stop orgy of violence brings.

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Keanu Reeves has annihilated the place. In what appears to be a glass-encased museum full of ancient artefacts, he is surrounded by abstract carnage. Bad guy after bad buy has arrived only to be beaten to a bloody pulp.

Reeves’ fists have smashed into chins, cheeks and chests repeatedly, compulsively, violently. He has sliced and diced his way through one pathetic mercenary after another, finishing them off with a knife to the neck or a machete through their face.

If that doesn’t work, he shoots them in the head, hands or feet, often point blank. In this smorgasbord of brutality, bones break and bodies crumple every few seconds. Honestly, it’s a lot.

John Wick
John Wick and his handy nunchucks. (Photo: Supplied)

Somewhere along the way, Reeves acquires a set of nunchucks which dangle casually around his neck like a beach towel. He uses those when he runs out of bullets and his hands are sore, clubbing his opposition into submission.

This set piece – a perfectly executed orgy of carnage – occurs in the first hour of John Wick: Chapter 4, and despite the dozens of bodies around him, Reeves doesn’t even seem to break into a sweat. (By the way, he’s 58 years old. Yes, he still does his own stunts.)

Welcome to the ultra-violent delights of another John Wick movie. Released this week, the fourth instalment in the ultimate revenge saga clocks in at an Avatar-threatening two hours and 49 minutes. You will not be bored. Most of that is spent watching Reeves dispatch bad guys.

Dozens, possibly hundreds, of them are dealt to in all manner of bloody, disgusting and violent ways, because of course they do. This is a John Wick film, and it does exactly what it says it will do on the box. The thwacks thwack. The kapows kapow. It’s rated R16 for a reason.

This is not a film that’s going to win Academy Awards. At this point, no one’s expecting Reeves to bag acting accolades for his performance as a gruff hitman avenging the death of his puppy. His fists do most of the talking, and they talk a lot. At one point, he confronts an entire underground nightclub of baddies, a climactic big bad boss fight so bruising you’ll wince over every punch. At another, he pummels his way up a giant set of stairs, taking out everyone in his path, only to be pushed back down to the bottom so he’s forced to do it all over again. The set piece in Paris involving fist fights, gun battles and car chases all at once? Stunning!

It’s ridiculous, over-the-top action film-making at its finest. It’s also another chance to reconnect with your John Wick friend. This is a film that won’t make sense without your John Wick friend by your side. Everyone should have a John Wick friend. The definition of a John Wick friend is someone with whom you can happily spend two hours and 49 minutes in a darkened room chugging popcorn and watching pummelling violence, savage aggression and one gruesome death after another, then laugh heartily about what you just saw afterwards.

John Wick
Rina Sawayama, one of the few women to appear in John Wick: Chapter 4. (Photo: Supplied)

Sure, someone, somewhere, probably worries about why films like John Wick exist. They’ll be concerned about what all that ultra-violence says about society, about how it might affect the kids, and whether or not any of this could cross over into real life (I, for one, would love a suit that came with bullet-proof sleeves). Theses have probably been written. At least one academic type has probably stared over the rim of their milk-bottle bottomed glasses and tut-tutted about John Wick and all this hallabaloo.

I don’t care. I have too much fun when I take my John Wick friend to a new John Wick movie to worry about any of that. John Wick is good. John Wick is special. John Wick is two hours and 49 minutes of people beating the crap out of each other, and it made me forget about all the other shit going on in the world for that exact amount of time.

Thank you, John Wick. Keanu, this better not be the end. If it is, I’ve got a set of nunchucks dangling around my neck that may have something to say about it.


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