A few days ago I was talking with one of my friends at the YMCA. I told him over the weekend that I saw “John Wick: Chapter 2″, again. He said,”You really must like it.” I told him that I thought “John Wick: Chapter 2” was the best action movie of the last 10 years. Keanu Reeves is awesome. The movie has this “strange love story” that makes it very clear what John fights for.
I liked “John Wick” a lot. His tale of bloody vengeance about his dead dog and missing vintage sports car reveals in the end as the metaphor for his late wife Helen, played by Bridget Moynahan—the love of his life. John’s lost love story.
In “John Wick: Chapter 2” what John fights for is completely transparent. Keanu Reeves’s John is the retired master assassin, forced back into “the game”. John’s friend Winston, played by Ian McShane, tells Santino, played by Riccardo Scamarcio that he called back John on the marker which allowed him to have a life with Helen, and he betrayed John as well. Winston warns Santino that John will ‘kill him’, because “He came back for love.” I got the movie then. “John Wick 2” is the great B-action movie that becomes the powerful story about John’s lost love story. Derek Kolstad’s screenplay is minimalist clarity.
Reeves is awesome in the brutal and spectacular martial arts and gun displays. As John, he is eloquently understated, wounded, and full of focused rage. The fighting sequence where John takes out assassins in the subway is electrifying and immaculate. Reeves creates John as the tragic hero, who fights for honor and the love of his departed soul mate.
As one of John’s intended victims lays in a bathing pool, she asks him, “John, do you fear damnation?” John sits next to her and says, “Yes.” Without Helen, he feels sentenced to hell. In the opening scene, John steals his Mustang back from his enemy. John is relentless. In the scene in the garage, he dispatches literally dozens of trained killers with Muay Thai, Jujitsu, Aikido, and boxing. The fight choreography is clean and devastating. Reeves has mastered his arts. He retrieves his car and spares his enemy. We discover that the car was not important to him—rather what was in it.
John wants normalcy and calm. He even has a new dog—without a name. However, Satino calls upon the blood marker that had set John free. The marker bounds John to do whatever Santino requests. Santino wants John to murder his sister Gianna, played by beautiful and dark Claudi Gerini. Gianna has ascended to the seat on in the international crime circle. The seat that Santino felt is rightfully his. John refuses: “I’m not that guy anymore.” Santino and his men wreak havoc upon John and his home.
John and his dog find sanctuary in the Continental Hotel run by his friend Winston. The Continental is sanctuary for all assassins. However, by its code, all markers must be honored. Therefore, John must kill Gianna. If he refuses, he dies. If he kills her, he dies. That is John’s mortal curse.
Director Chad Stahelski has an authentic feel for the hero and the villain. He possesses an instinct for action. Bruce Lee might have said his action is “like water”—it flows with impact. The martial arts with and without guns is brutally exquisite. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen captures the continuous flow whether in the dark tunnels of Italy or the all-white lit subway. Stahelski has great homage to “Enter the Dragon” in the climactic fight in mirrored rooms.
Stahelski’s John is focused and empathetic, because of his cause. There is strange satisfaction watching John take out trained assassins, who think they are tough when John is just being that. John gets beat up badly, as well, but he never stops. His flashbacks to John’s Helen sustain an ironic poignancy. Common’s Cassian, who is Gianna’s protector, is John’s arch rival, who has code and honor. On the other hand, Scamarcio’s Santino occurs as a prissy coward hiding behind his army of warriors. Reeves is made to play John. His controlled impassiveness expresses his deep rage and loss.
We are all for John. There must be justice in the world—or at least in the world of movies. “John Wick: Chapter 2” is bloody and singular, and John fights for his lost love story. Somehow that makes a difference. See “John Wick: Chapter 2”. It’s a great movie.
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