Shooting, stabbing, and plenty of slick suits. What else can you expect from a John Wick movie?
John Wick has a painful past. He used to work for the biggest gangsters in the country,
killing people left and right and developing a fearsome reputation in the process.
But eventually, John tired of his violent life and, after tying the knot,
he retired from the assassin business for good.
Retirement however, is far from smooth sailing though. The first "John Wick" movie opens with our
hero having recently lost his wife to a terminal illness. His dog, who was gifted to him by his
wife, is soon killed by Iosef, the son of a mob boss. Thus John embarks on a crusade of vengeance,
bringing his artillery out to once again become one of the most dreaded assassins
in the world. In the second movie, John crosses paths with another mob boss, Santino D'Antonio,
who double-crosses him. This propels the titular protagonist on a fresh mission of revenge.
But John's actions in "John Wick 2" put a mark on his head,
and the third movie is all about him becoming a wanted man. The film ends with
John once again swearing bloody revenge against anyone who tries to cross him.
"Whoever comes, whoever it is, I'll kill them. I'll kill them all."
This reputation for being an unstoppable killing machine follows John across every movie,
to the point where you are left wondering why anyone would even bother to try to get in his way.
On the surface, the "John Wick" movies appear
to have pretty basic plots. But the storyline actually goes pretty deep,
and it all connects back to John's past as a master assassin working for the mob.
Throughout the trilogy, audiences catch glimpses of a secret world of assassins that operates by
its own set of rules. It has its own currency in the form of gold coins and a strict code of
conduct. The entire criminal network is run by a secret group of powerbrokers called the
"High Table." And at the heart of it all, the various Continental Hotels appear to be
the place where the people in charge of this world congregate and arrange their missions.
Some answers about this secret world will be provided in the
upcoming Continental Hotel spin-off TV series,
which will focus on the creation of the establishment and its assassin clientele.
John Wick is often considered one of the most badass anti-heroes ever put to film. Every
person who crosses his path who knows anything about his past is absolutely terrified of him.
The best example of this occurs in one of the most iconic scenes in the franchise,
which takes place in the first "John Wick" movie. Iosef, the guy who had killed John's dog,
does not understand the depth of his mistake. And so his mob boss father patiently explains to him
that John is known as "Baba Yaga" in the assassins' world — aka the Boogeyman. Although,
as explained in the film, he wasn't necessarily 'The Boogeyman' himself.
"He was the one you sent to KILL the f---ing Boogeyman"
There are very few people whom John can trust to help him without them expecting anything
in return. Chief among them is Winston, the manager of the New York Continental Hotel.
Winston holds enormous influence in the world of assassins, and he has used that
influence on multiple occasions to help John out of respect for their shared past.
In the first movie, Winston allows John to temporarily take cover at his hotel
and also provides information about the mob boss Mr. Wick had set out to kill.
In the second movie, Winston personally steps in to delay the placing of an "excommunicado" title
on John's head, which would have every assassin in the country gunning for him.
Then in the third movie, things escalate to the point where Winston teams up with John
to go against the High Table and bring down the assassin world's power structure once and for all.
Audiences get to see plenty of examples of John's ability to kill his target,
no matter the obstacle. While he prefers to make use of guns and knives,
Mr. Wick is also not above using any hard object that happens to
be nearby to give his enemies all sorts of imaginative and brutal deaths. For instance,
the first film's mob boss explains to his son that John once single-handedly killed three men
in a bar using a pencil, and we see this method of murder in action in the second film.
In the third film, when John faces a towering opponent in a library,
he uses a thick book to break the guy's jaw and shatter his spine.
Then there were the horses that John sicced onto his enemies later in the film. Basically, bad guys
should feel lucky if he shoots them because the alternative is a lot more drawn out and messy.
What put the "John Wick" series on the map was the industry-changing level of sophistication
of its action sequences. The franchise was conceived by screenwriter Derek Kolstad,
alongside David Leitch and Chad Stahelski — two men who had been top stuntmen and second unit
directors for years. And you can see the level of expertise they bring to the table as directors.
While other action movies use every trick in the book to hide the fact that the lead
actor is not actually doing the stunts themselves, Keanu Reeves trained heavily
to be able to do as many of the stunts on-camera as possible. As Matt Patches wrote for Grantland,
"Stahelski and Leitch were blunt with their star: 'John Wick' would
not involve [...] anything [Reeves had] done before. He would learn judo, Japanese jujitsu,
and Brazilian jiu-jitsu from 'some of the toughest guys [Stahelski and Leitch] ever met.'"
This allowed the directors to let complicated fight choreography
play out without needing to switch to a double.
For his part, Reeves told Cinemablend that he does about 90% of the action himself.
As a man constantly on the run,
there are not a lot of places where John Wick can feel safe and at home.
One place that keeps popping up in the franchise as a safe haven for even the most desperate
individuals is the series of Continental Hotels — one of which is run by John's old friend Winston.
The assassin world revolves around these hotels, and Winston wields enough influence
to make sure none of the assassins or mob bosses ever dare get into a fight while on the premises.
In the third movie, Winston plots with John to completely upend the balance of power in the
assassin world by taking out the High Table. The hotel becomes the setting for an epic third-act
shootout that ends with John faking his death and Winston being reined in by The Adjudicator.
Once John re-entered the world of assassins, other characters
often begged and pleaded for him to give up his mission of vengeance and return home.
And he refused every time, forging forward resolutely to punish those
who had destroyed his last chance at anything resembling peace and happiness.
"You're not very good at retiring."
"I'm working on it."
As Reeves told The Austin Chronicle,
"For me, it was fun telling this mythological, Old Testament revenge tale.
But I don't quite think of it as revenge. I think of it as reclaiming."
John's will to exact vengeance is the character's defining trait.
It's also what makes him such a compelling protagonist whom you cannot help but root for.
For John Wick and the rest of the criminal underworld, killing each other in the line
of business is perfectly acceptable. But breaking a promise is the most despicable sort of behavior.
It's strange that in a world where promises and oaths are literally the currency,
characters are bound to break them all the time. In the first movie,
the sanctity of John's retirement is shattered, which kicks off his journey through the series.
In the second movie, Santino breaks the rules of their agreement,
prompting John in turn to flout the Continental's rules by killing him on hotel property.
The third movie shows us the consequences of John's actions and everyone who helped him.
The High Table physically punishes Winston and The Bowery King and then forces them to
resign from their positions of authority. In the meantime, John had made a promise to
kill Winston personally — a promise he later walked back on, consequently starting a war
with the High Table on one side and John, the Bowery King, and Winston on the other.
When we first meet John in the original movie, he is dressed in an unkempt manner,
befitting his status as a grieving widower. But once the action starts, he puts on his iconic
black suit that manages to conceal his weapons. The men that John fights in all three movies are
also always faultlessly dressed in the most fashionable clothes found in high society.
But the suits worn by Keanu Reeves in the films are far more complicated than
regular business clothes. "John Wick" costume designer Luca Mosca tells Gentleman's Journal,
"There are so many secrets in the suits! Safety always comes first, so I often had to allow room
for pads and anything else Keanu had to wear to protect himself during stunts or fight scenes."
John Wick is one of the most violent action heroes in modern cinema,
but audiences still love rooting for the guy. That
is because he operates by a strict code of honor among allies and enemies alike.
"Are you here on business sir?"
"Afraid so Francis. Why don't you take the night off?"
We first glimpse John's code in the first movie when he offers to let the main villain and his men
off the hook if they simply hand over the guy who killed his dog.
It's only when the criminals refuse his offer that John goes Boogeyman on their butts.
In the second movie, he is unwillingly dragged back into action to honor a
pledge he made to another crime boss years ago. In the third film,
we see John calling in favors with the gold coins used as currency in the secret assassin world.
These coins are the best example of the code that the assassins live by: a token of acknowledgment
for services rendered and a debt that will need to be repaid at some point in the future.
His code of honor also determines who he lets live or die;
if he respects a fellow assassin enough, even if they're trying to kill him,
he might leave them with their injuries rather than finish the job.
What sets John Wick apart from other action heroes in the genre
is the fact that you can clearly see his many violent encounters take a toll on his body.
He is punched, kicked, shot at, and stabbed many times, leaving him bloodied
and struggling to stand upright by the end of each movie. He even cuts off a finger in the
third film and later is shot multiple times point-blank and dives backward off a roof.
While John always manages to walk away from his violent encounters in the end, the blood and scars
on his face are a grim reminder of the price he has to pay to keep forging his path toward
absolution. Those types of injuries help keep the tension high among audiences, as they are left
wondering how long John's body can take such heavy abuse without breaking down once and for all.
It could be hard to keep rooting for John Wick if the films did not
regularly remind us of his loving, nurturing side buried deep within.
The events of the first film are a direct result of the deep love he had for his deceased wife
Helen. The second movie shows her in a brief flashback that once again affirms the powerful
love John felt for his wife and how that love made him want to become a better man.
The third movie does not feature any appearances by Helen, but we see John going to retrieve a
picture of her in preparation for leaving the country. These moments help solidify
the idea that as awful a person as John Wick is forced to be in his dealings with his enemies,
he still yearns for the life of companionship he shared with Helen once upon a time.