![]() No one notices because both utilize silencers. ![]() Against the bone-white backdrop of Westville WTC's austere hallways, Wick and Cassian (Common) shoot at one another. That's also true of his and Common's gun duel while headed towards the subway. Wick killing a man with a pencil is as memorable as any action cinema moment from the last 20 years. By the time this scene reaches its conclusion, "John Wick" is another strain of action movie entirely. He uses judo to take down another while changing his gun cartridge. There, intricate and brutal gunplay occurs while clubgoers keep dancing, only fleeing after the moment when the film levels up in every sense with Wick eliminating a horde of identically dressed bodyguards. However, things don't go "too far" (in the best sense) until a half-naked Iosef flees onto The Red Circle's dance floor. As lovely techno music booms, Wick heads into The Red Circle's bathhouses, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. The film is suddenly going farther and harder. Wick eliminates two Tarasov goons in a lavish bathroom by stabbing one in the ear and drowning the other in a shallow sink before snapping his neck. From the second Wick arrives there, the visual language of "John Wick" kicks up a notch. It is the epitome of sleek sleaze, a paradise of fluorescent neon and blue hues that is one part spa, one part nightclub. Oh, and John Wick isn't his real name he possesses a mysterious backstory that involves a Russian crime syndicate.The Red Circle is the Tarasov crime family's stronghold. The heavily tattooed High Table secretaries use rotary phones and old computers, and apparently, every person on the streets of New York is an assassin interested in Wick's bounty. A snazzily-dressed High Table Adjudicator ( Asia Kate Dillon) even arrives to clean up the mess that Wick made. When Wick breaks the rules and kills Santino on neutral Continental property, the High Table expels him from their ranks and puts a bounty on his head. ![]() Santino D'Antonio ( Riccardo Scamarcio), a member of the Italian mafia, forces Wick to kill Santino's sister by invoking an unbreakable blood oath that the two share. There's far more under the surface than the audience could have guessed: an organization called the High Table oversees the assassins' actions like an executive board runs a corporate business. The tone lifts to something lighter as if the director's winking at the audience, and the intricacies of Wick's assassin world slowly unravel. ![]() Indeed, the second and third films are when the franchise openly indulges its more outlandish side. He bleeds, sweats, and just keeps going with those bangs falling into his eyes. Wick is visceral and efficient, savage and ruthless, his actions both second nature and demanding all his body can give. Not enough praise can be heaped upon his commitment to stunt work authenticity as such, the violence in Wick just hits differently. The meticulously complex choreography is remarkable on its own but also graceful in execution, in no small part due to Reeves's mastery over physical performance. Rather than aiming for style over substance, Stahelski treats the martial art with the respect it deserves. Renowned Hong Kong director John Woooriginated gun-fu in the 1980s and 1990s, and Hollywood began imitating the style in the early 2000s. Much has been made about how Wick resurrected Hollywood gun-fu, but the reason Wick's action scenes are captivating is simple: Stahelski and his crew understand that gun-fu is an art form. Truly, that's because John Wick's fight choreography is the definition of epic. The nightmarish aura surrounding Wick is a perfect mix of humorous, unsettling, and more than a touch of cheering him on because this is fiction, and we can do that. The pencil line, especially because it's intercut with Wick smashing open a concrete floor to unearth a cache of guns and ammunition, is darkly hysterical and makes the film's intentions clear. But he still seethes over Wick's mythos, especially how Wick once killed three men with a pencil. Viggo Tarasov ( Michael Nyqvist), Iosef's father, flat-out abandons Iosef to his fate because that boy's in deep sh*t. The audience sees none of Wick's murderous history, however it's all conveyed through dialogue that reads like a modern fairy tale or a superhero origin story. He's legendary throughout the assassin community, an unstoppable Terminator-style figure that inspires awe as much as terrified resignation. Wick's prowess as a dealer of death is actually the best example of the franchise's tonal balance.
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