"Whoa!"
"I know kung-fu."
"Something from 'Speed'"
This is what we remember from Keanu Reeves. The man has essentially become a walking joke of beach-bum valley-valley boy brainlessness. He never really got much respect. He started where he should've: Bill and Ted. That is his acting range. Then, was given a chance to show that he could be an action star in Speed and Point Break and actually kinda proved everyone wrong. Then came The Matrix which should've showcased Keanu as one of the best action stars of the late 90s. But, he had to do sequels. And they had to get heavier and more philosophical and a lot shittier. So, instead of being able to write action vehicles for Keanu in the early 2000s, he was committed to doing sequels to a movie that really should've been able to stand on its own. After that, he faded into The Lake House obscurity. Okay, why did I just have to give you an entire history of Keanu's rise and fall from stardom? Because... this SHOULD'VE been the movie to bring him right back into mainstream Hollywood. It SHOULD'VE been the movie that would allow him to not have to make another 47 Ronin. It SHOULD'VE been his comeback film. And it's definitely good enough to be so. But, none of you are going to see it, are you?
John Wick is good. Like, really good. It actually provides everything that someone looking for a straight up balls to the wall action movie is looking for. What most of these movies are missing is either a decent plot or good character development. Most action films don't want to get bogged down in character, opting instead to get right down to the action. What John Wick does so great is that it gives us perfect character development and it only wastes about thirty seconds of the movie to do so. Keanu plays the title character John Wick. He's just lost his wife to an illness. He's clearly downtrodden until he receives a package late a night later containing a puppy his wife has left to him so that he may grieve with someone. Keanu, with the tough exterior, bonds with the puppy and winds up looking like he finds some semblance of happiness. However, some Russian thugs break into his house to steal his car and wind up... yeah sorry... killing the puppy along the way. This pisses him off something fierce. This is when we find out that John Wick is no average dude. He used to be a hired killer. An unstoppable force. No one fucks with this guy. No one. He kills the people that hire him to kill people. He's a killing machine. And someone killed his dog. Not good. So, yes... he spends the rest of the movie killing his way to reconciling his wife's death.
And that's it. Seriously. It's Keanu with a shit load of guns killing a shit load of people. There's a lot more fun to it, but I don't want to spoil anything. Keanu is actually really good in it too. His Wick character never really strings together more than three words in a sentence... and doesn't talk all that often, but the scene in which he finally explodes outward all that he's been holding inside... this is where we want our Keanu back. Sure, there's an acting line that Keanu can't really cross... the line outside his talent zone. He's never going to be an Academy Award winner. Ever. He's never going to be a DiCaprio or do the things Hanks can do or become the characters Daniel Day-Lewis becomes. But... inside that zone that Keanu is capable of becoming... he's at his best in John Wick.
B
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