John Wick: Chapter 2, 2017.
Directed by Chad Stahelski.
Starring Keanu Reeves, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, Common, Claudia Gerini, Lance Reddick, Tobias Segal, Ian McShane, Bridget Moynahan, John Leguizamo, Peter Stormare, Laurence Fishburne, and Franco Nero.
SYNOPSIS:
After returning to the criminal underworld to repay a debt, John Wick discovers that a large bounty has been put on his life.
Action cinema is in a sort of dirge at the moment where geriatric superstars – Liam Neeson, Denzel Washington, Kevin Costner – fight valiantly against disposable henchman while being cut to shreds in the edit room because to truly believe them as dangerous would be to take too big a leap of faith. Enter real life Dorian Grey, Keanu Reeves, appearing once more as he did with Neo way back in 1999 with John Wick, a character in a similar mold to those mentioned – vengeance induced by death (of his dog) – who was brought kicking and screaming into a fantastical world of long takes and bizarre mythos. And in doing so rejuvenated the genre with a wry smile and a series of head shots and punches to the throat.
With John Wick 2, director Chad Stahelski doesn’t exactly reinvent the formula, instead reinforcing the formula with bulletproof lining. Starting at it means to go on with a car chase all sorts of ludicrous which involves a “car gang bang” and what Stahelski calls “car fu,” (a loaded term which at its simplest finds henchman being hit by the bonnet of the car). The film then begins to mirror its predecessor. Returning home, Wick finds himself in the company of one-time buddy Santino with whom he is bound to by a blood debt. Santino wants Wick to off his sister who now finds herself mingling with those high up in the criminal underworld. Wick refuses, thus triggering a chain of events leading to a trip to Rome and a ridiculous body count.
It may lack the streamlined, break neck pacing of the first, but it placates this for further extremities and absolute absurdities. The bizarre world Wick occupies is opened up to reveal entire cityscapes run by hit men and women, where the homeless are employed by Laurence Fishburne channeling his best Ghost Dog, where shop owner Peter Serafinowicz discusses guns with lingo more appropriate for Jay Rayner and seemingly everyone is baying for the blood of Keanu.
Yet Stahelski and writer Derek Kolstad choose not to be bogged down with the bloated mythos, forcing the viewer to accept this world as it is. Exposition doesn’t exist to explain how the currency works and why a drink costs the same as a loaded gun, or why the blood debt is of such importance; they don’t simply throw you into the deep end, they throw you into the deep end attached to vast stones and hope you can breathe underwater.
That silliness passes through into the ultra-violent set pieces. Wick fights off two henchman with a single pencil, he forces a lit cigarette into the mouth of an assailant, grand symphonies of bullets and fists are shot in long fluid takes. It’s an ode to all that makes action cinema so hysterically enjoyable. There’s a language to violence that too often is lost beneath a need for plotting and stuntmen, a language Stahelski and Reeves are clearly fluent in.
Then there’s the finale, a grand, mirror room set gun fight which exists as a fuck you to Enter the Dragon, a true testament to the powers of all those involved. John Wick 2 isn’t to be taken seriously, and it’s well aware of that. The world is baffling and bizarre, the violence is joyous and of such extremities, be grateful for Wick.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Thomas Harris
Originally published February 14, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
