John Wick (Movie Review)

Fun fact: Keanu Reeves once played Hamlet on stage. I’m not kidding. Look it up. Apparently He was pretty good!

Keanu Reeves is a Canadian treasure. I will fight anybody who says otherwise.

 John Wick

Directed by: Chad Stahelski and David Leitch

Produced by: Basil Iwanyk, Eva Longoria, David Leitch

Written by: Derek Kolstad

Genres: Action, Thriller

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Dafoe, Dean Winters, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, Andy the Dog

Music by: Tyler Bates, Joel J. Richard

Plot: John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is seemingly an everyman who, sadly, is mourning the death of his wife (Bridget Moynahan), who has succumbed to a terminal illness. While moping around his house, he receives a surprise package from his wife from beyond the grave who had arranged to give him a puppy to cope with his loneliness. John and the puppy immediately hit it off, becoming the cutest movie couple in film history, outdoing Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.

Awwwwww……

Unfortunately, while going on his daily routine of, uh, Driving donuts?!?! That’s……Pointless…..

Yeah, this movie doesn’t exactly display a whole bunch of logic, and this scene in particular probably could’ve been cut from the film to the benefit of the picture as a whole. Anyways, while driving around, he runs afoul of a group of hoodlums led by Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen).

Sure, I know Alfie Allen’s character is technically named Iosef Tarasov, but if you’re as big a Game of Thrones fan as I am, you can’t not see him as Theon Greyjoy. Especially this character. Don’t even try to tell me otherwise, he is Theon Greyjoy.

Reek and his shithead buddies follow John home, murder his puppy and steal his Mustang. What he doesn’t know, however is that John is known in the underworld as the deadliest hitman in New York City. And know that he’s got nothing to lose, he’s gunning for Tarasov, his dad, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist) and the rest of the Russian Mafia.

The Russian mob: Because the Sicilian mafia is overused, and a Mexican cartel may come off as racist.

The moviegoing community hasn’t seen all that much of Canadian “actor” Keanu Reeves since his appearance in the shit-tastic The Day the Earth Stood Still in 2008. Until his appearance in last year’s 47 Ronin, which we will not discuss ever, he had mostly just appeared in some small scale independent dramas that nobody saw. That’s a damn shame because I’m a big Keanu fan.

Yeah, I get that he’s not a good actor, technically speaking,but there’s something about him that’s so damn appealing. I’m not sure if it’s the fat that he still looks like a 25-year old, or the fact that he really looks like he’s trying to emote up there. And hey, it’s not like he isn’t capable of delivering at least a passable performance. here and then.

So, how does Keanu do as John Wick? Well, you know,  he does what he did in the Matrix: Be a blank slate, enabling the audience to comfortably insert themselves into the action, of which there is a crapload. He’s not about to set the Academy Awards on fire, but he does exactly what a B-movie action star should do. And when he does need to show some emotion, he doesn’t embarrass himself, and can be genuinely touching when he needs to be. Sure, it would’ve been nice to get an all-around better actor, but as comebacks go, you could do worse.

Much, much worse.

The New York City of the world of John Wick is definitely something to behold. It is apparently a mecca for hitmen who do various jobs for the different crime bosses, and who seem to live a life separate from the non-criminal elements of society. The cops don’t particularly care about the in-fighting between the different games, as long as they clean up their messes and leave civilians out of it (There’s a pretty funny interaction between Keanu and a policeman). Hell, the hitmen have an entire damn hotel, maintained by Lance Derrick and Ian McShane, reserved for themselves. These assassins use freaking gold coins as currency for chrissakes! It’s definitely highly illogical, but I don’t really care all that much. I love it when movies try to do world-building  like this movie does. It almost seems like a less-stylized and less extreme in general version of the world of Sin City.

That’s not to say it isn’t stylized or violent though, because it’s both of those things, especially the latter. Holy shit, does John Wick ever rack up a body count. The movie, admittedly, is a little slow for the first ten minutes or so, but the minute that Keanu Reeves starts kicking ass and taking names. Director Chad Stahelski was Keanu’s martial arts coordinator in the sci-fi epicness that was The Matrix, And he definitely brought his talent for making people look like unstoppable badasses to this movie. John Wick is up there with the other unstoppable badasses of film history in terms of sheer body count and pure…Uh…Badassery, I guess. You have not trouble believing that this guy wiped out all of the Russian mafia’s rivals. Seriously. The Punisher wishes he was as badass as John Wick.

Did this help or hinder Punisher’s street cred? I’m going back and forth on that.

 The other actors aside from Keanu were fine too. I especially liked Michael Nyqvist as the big baddie of the movie, although you can tell at times that he and Alfie Allen aren’t Russian when their Swedish and English accents, respectively, bleed through.

The only other real problem I had with the movie is the writing. There isn’t a whole lot of dialogue in this movie (Compared to, say, Sin City), but when it does show up, it is just plain silly. You see this dumb line?”

JOHN WICK: People keep asking if I’m back. Yeah, I’m thinking I’m back!!!

Clunky, cheesy and B-movie fodder, right? It’s not even close to being the most awkward line in the movie. That said, I kinda give the movie a pass on that front, because, well, I think that this movie is kind of a throwback to the action movies of the 80’s. Stupid, corny dialogue, sure, but man alive is it ever a good time.

Doesn’t mean that the movie gets a nine. Still a great ride, though.

Overall: A creative world, ultraviolence, silliness and Keanu Reeves. If you are a fan of any of those things, then drop whatever it is you’re doing now and get to your local movie theatre to watch John Wick. What are you gonna watch otherwise? Ouija?

8.0/10

If this makes more money than John Wick, anybody who made that happen will have a gruesomely violent chat with me.

Gone Girl (Movie Review)

That cat has seen some shit.

So, who else  is getting tired of me writing about baseball? I sure as hell am! Let’s just sit back, relax and settle down to watch a nice popcorn flick. Let’s see what’s in theatre right now…

Oh…. This is gonna be weird as fuck, isn’t it?

 Gone Girl

 Directed by: David Fincher

 Produced by: Leslie Dixon, Bruna Papandrea, Reese Witherspoon, Ceán Chaffin

 Screenplay by: Gillian Flynn

 Based on: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

 Genres: Thriller, Mystery

 Starring: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Patrick  Fugit, Casey Wilson, Missi Pyle

 Music by: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

 Plot: In a sleepy town in Missouri known as North Carthage live former writer and current barkeep Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) and his wife, Amy Elliott-Dunne (Rosamund Pike), another former writer and, weirdly enough, the inspiration for a series of children’s books known as “Amazing Amy”, written by her parents. They are celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary, but unfortunately, it isn’t quite being celebrated under the best of circumstances, as they have grown distant from one another, ruining what used to be quite a lovely marriage. On the morning of, Nick returns from the bar he co-owns with his sister, Margo (Carrie Coon), to find that his wife is missing from his house with no prior warning, and there are signs of a struggle in the living room. Understandably, he freaks the fuck out and calls the cops, and the whole community rallies behind him.

However, things are shaken up a bit when Nick’s facade of being the perfect, worried husband starts to slip and what was once perceived as being a shy, awkward, kind person starts to look more and more like an angry, remorseless sociopath. It doesn’t help his case much when evidence gathered by the police starts to shift the blame in his direction, and even less so when the media jumps all over his case, all but screaming for the governor’s office to fry this man for murder. Did Nick Dunne kidnap, or even murder his wife? Or is there another explanation?

Weirdly enough, the first people that I want to praise for this movie are not the actors, director or writer, but the marketing team. Whoever green-lighted the decision to only use scenes from the first third of the movie or so in the trailers for the film. I was completely oblivious to the whopper of a twist that was to come, and for that, I thank them.

Before I get into some of the numerous stuff I really loved from this movie, I’ve gotta get the one thing I didn’t like in the movie out of the way, so here goes: I thought some of the dialogue from when Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike’s characters were meeting for the first time was kind of annoyingly pretentious.

Well, now that that’s out of the way, it’s time for me to voraciously kiss this movie’s ass.

Holy crap, was this movie ever the definition of perfectly cast. I heard that some people, mostly fans of the novel that the movie is based on, were bitching about Ben Affleck being cast in the main role. I, personally, have been a huge Affleck supporter ever since he came back onto he scene in a big way with The Town, and I was one of what seemed to be the few people who weren’t losing their minds over him being cast as you-know-who.

“What, are you dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am?”

Well, it puts my ever-worrying mind somewhat at ease to know that Ben Affleck absolutely brings it to this movie. His character is not always shown doing the nicest things on-screen. In fact, I probably should have hated him at one point, but throughout the whole movie, he displays a type of charm that makes Nick Dunne irresistibly likable. He’s a nice guy (Or he seems to be), but he also most certainly is not a perfect person., rather a very complicated human being who’s dealing with a lot of crap, some of it it brought on by himself.

Affleck’s co-star, Rosamund Pike is…Well…..I don’t know if I can say too much about her or her character without spoiling the movie, but I will say that she is fantastic. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that she delivers one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. No joke.

The supporting cast is perfect as well. Carrie Coon (From The Leftovers) is funny at times and has some good lines. Neil Patrick Harris is very good as a slightly unhinged ex-boyfriend of Rosamund Pike’s. Tyler Perry is also in this movie, in his second appearance in a movie not directed by him since his cameo in the 2009 Star Trek movie (His first was 2012’s Alex Cross, and the less said about that, the better). I’ve never been a Tyler Perry fan, not because I don’t like the guy, because he seems nice enough. I just find Madea unfunny,  the Madea character insufferable, and religious movies in general to be incredibly preachy, bad pun intended. Eh, different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

But hey, Tyler Perry was excellent as well as Nick’s somewhat morally ambiguous defense attorney.  The dude can act! Now, Hollywood just needs to get him into some better movies and the world may soon forget…Well, anything that wasn’t Precious, Star Trek and Gone Girl.

We have a lot of forgiving to do, folks. A lot of it.

Much praise is deserved by the director as well. David Fincher, director of such masterpieces as Se7en, Zodiac, Fight Club, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network (As well as the hunk of shit that was Alien 3)  and probably one of the best directors working in Hollywood today, really, creates a very dark, unsettling nature in direct contrast to the idyllic suburban setting of the story. It also helps that he brought his frequent collaborators, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Who had previously done the soundtracks to The Social Network and Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), along to do the music, which is, in a word, eerie. Eerie, eerie eerie. Electronic buzzes and drones aren’t that much fun to listen to on their own, but holy shit, did they ever provide the perfect atmosphere in this movie. If this movie isn’t at least nominated for a “Best Original Score” prize at the Oscars, I will be very, very angry.

Kudos to writer Gillian Flynn as well. It’s not very often you see the author of the source material write the screenplay for the script. The only author I can think of who really makes a point to write the movie adaptations of his work is Frank Miller, and everything he’s done that isn’t 300 or Sin City is utter shit. Flynn, on the other hand, writes a pretty fantastic script, aside from the minor gripes I mentioned in the beginning. She also does a really good job of incorporating elements of black comedy into the movie, which was a pleasing surprise.

Overall: Sure, it’s a long movie, clocking in at over 140 minutes, but it’s such a wild ride that you don’t care. If you don’t have a weak stomach, this is a must-see movie. I sure as hell loved it.

Rating: 9.5/10

“Oh, shit, it was the cat who did it, wasn’t it?!?!”- A thought that I’m ashamed to admit crossed my mind multiple times during the movie.