We all fall down but John Wick always seems to get back up.
Is his suit magic?
And who's listening in on Assassin Radio, anyway?
Spoilers for John Wick 4
As surprising as it may seem especially for a franchise as successful and lucrative as
the "John Wick" series is, everyone's favorite dog-loving assassin appears to die at the
end of "John Wick: Chapter 4."
After Wick refuses to shoot his old friend Caine in a duel, both to protect Caine's daughter
and to take out the arrogant Marquis Vincent de Gramont, Caine's bullet wounds John critically.
"You come here thinking there is a way out for you, Mr. Wick.
There is not."
Though the wound doesn't kill John immediately, it seems to be the final blow to John as he
succumbs to the many other injuries that he's gotten across the rest of the film.
From there, the movie cuts to the Bowery King and Winston.
They look over John's tombstone, laid to rest next to the grave of his wife, Helen.
But is John actually dead?
After all, we don't see him being buried.
Furthermore, Winston could've helped fake John's death so he could finally live in peace.
And they could use the Bowery King as a legitimate witness.
Maybe his "goodbye" is knowing that John wouldn't be able to see him again.
To be fair, we're hoping Wick gets to find peace one way or another.
It makes sense narratively and thematically to kill him off, and frankly, more franchises
could use definitive endings.
At the end of "John Wick: Chapter 4," right before the ending credits roll, we see the
Bowery King and Winston pay their last respects to John.
Before leaving, however, Winston puts his hand lovingly on John's gravestone, tearfully
stating "goodbye, my son," while showcasing a tattoo of John's family crest on his finger.
Does this mean that Winston was John Wick's biological father?
"I don't sit at the table."
"Your family does."
Winston and John's being related by blood seems unlikely.
For one, John is canonically an orphan, and nothing implies that Winston gave him up as
a baby.
It's more likely that Winston simply saw John as an adopted son rather than just another
faceless assassin.
Perhaps Winston even raised John, which, if so, could be a subplot for the upcoming "John
Wick" spin-off series "The Continental."
We know that John was raised by the Ruska Roma, but since Winston's tattoo is of the
same crest, he could've been a part of his upbringing as well.
However, it is most likely Winston saying "goodbye, my son" was a sign of respect and mourning.
But John's mysterious parentage is still intriguing to think about nonetheless.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had a profound and lasting effect on Hollywood.
One of the things it helped popularize is the inclusion of a post-credits scene.
Obviously, the MCU didn't invent these little teaser moments, but Marvel has certainly helped
popularize their inclusion regardless.
After the credits roll on "John Wick: Chapter 4," we see Caine about to be reunited with
his long-lost daughter after John Wick's sacrifice during their climactic duel.
This led to the High Table sparing Caine and Caine's daughter's lives.
However, earlier in the film, while Caine was still chasing Wick down, the blind assassin
got into a deadly sword fight with another one of Wick and Caine's old allies, the manager
of the Osaka Continental Hotel, Shimazu Koji.
Caine ended up killing Koji in front of his daughter, Akira.
As a result, In the final scene, Akira finds Caine and attacks him before he can reach
his daughter.
We don't see the fight itself, so several questions remain.
Did she fight and kill him, or will something or someone intervene?
Is she or Caine the new face of the "John Wick" franchise?
Only time will tell.
One of the main appeals of the "John Wick" series, besides its crazy action, stunts,
and surprisingly intricate lore and world-building, is the fact that the cast is always full of
great actors playing the colorful and eccentric assassins that John encounters, both as friend
or foe.
This includes Willem Dafoe, Halle Berry, Anjelica Huston, and Lawrence Fishburne.
And "John Wick: Chapter 4" is no exception.
Besides Hong Kong legend Donnie Yen and current horror icon Bill Skarsgård, the sequel also
introduces the Harbinger, played with intriguing intensity by Clancy Brown.
What's interesting about the Harbinger, is that one of the first things we see of him
is his finger's been cut off, similar to what happened to John Wick in "John Wick: Chapter
3 — Parabellum."
In that film, Wick cuts off his finger to create a blood oath to the High Table which
frees him of the bounty on his head.
He was also supposed to kill Winston, which he ultimately refused to do.
But is Brown's Harbinger someone who fulfilled his oath to the High Table?
Maybe that's why he's so obsessed with the rules, especially "the old ways," and often
talks back to his apparent superior, the corrupt Marquis.
Because of this detail, it seems like the Harbinger is a foil for John.
His path seems like a route John might've taken had he not left the assassin lifestyle behind.
At the end of the previous film, Winston betrays John, who had just risked his life to protect
Winston and his hotel against an army of highly trained, armor-wearing High Table gunmen.
Nonetheless, when all is said and done, Winston takes out a small pistol and shoots John multiple
times and knocks him off the rooftop of the Continental.
This is because the Adjudicator deconsecrated Winston's hotel.
"Gentlemen, this institution has now been deconsecrated.
Business may now be conducted on Continental grounds."
The menacing voice of the High Table gave Winston the choice to get his hotel back if
he killed John first.
Luckily for John, after falling multiple stories off a rooftop, he miraculously survives.
He's saved by the Bowery King and the two plot revenge.
However, when John meets Winston again in "John Wick: Chapter 4," there seems to be
little bad blood outside of oblique references to the past film.
Wick even comments that Winston "always has an angle."
John seems to trust Winston enough to agree to his plan to set up a one-on-one duel with
the Marquis to escape the High Table and "coincidentally" get the Continental back.
There's definitely a bond between the two and maybe even some understanding from John
about the tough situation Winston was in, but it makes little sense why he wouldn't
be angrier, and possibly vengeful, about Winston's act of betrayal.
"John Wick: Chapter 4," like most of the other films in the series, is an intense globe-trotting
action thriller.
Wick travels from New York to the Middle East to Japan to New York again to Berlin to Paris,
all in an effort to escape the High Table and kill anyone who gets in his way.
The problem is, the High Table is nigh-omnipresent and incredibly wealthy and well-connected.
It seems extremely unlikely that Wick could easily board a transcontinental plane or ship
without being identified immediately.
Or at least it wouldn't be so easy that he could do it multiple times throughout the
film without any trouble.
Wick is a highly trained assassin, but that's because he's extremely proficient at fighting,
marksmanship, and using improvised weapons.
He's renowned for his prowess at killing, not disguises, deception, or subterfuge.
In fact, like James Bond, he's always pretty easily recognized by fellow assassins, despite
that being quite an occupational hazard.
Obviously, airports are awash in surveillance and security measures.
Even if Wick has the requisite fake passports and other falsified documents, the "John Wick"
series has shown time and time again that assassins are everywhere and that their tech
and resources rival that of world governments.
All that being said, it's quite possible that in "John Wick: Chapter 4," John's last ally,
Koji, grants him one last favor and gives him safe passage back to New York.
Toward the end of "John Wick: Chapter 4," before the climactic duel between Wick and
Caine, there is an extended action scene that pits John against a throng of thugs throughout Paris.
This includes a car chase where Wick drives a door-less muscle car, engages in a fistfight
during the middle of high-speed traffic at the Arc de Triomphe, and a continuous shot
of John Wick blowing away thugs with a shotgun in an abandoned building.
In fact, John encounters the most foes at once in the entire film during this section.
That's because the Marquis has arranged for a radio station to send a broadcast out to
all the assassins in Paris about the incredible bounty on John's head.
The radio station itself is located in the Eiffel Tower, with a DJ somehow keeping tabs
on Wick's whereabouts throughout the fight.
This does raise the question, is this an assassins-only broadcast?
Or is it something a random person could tune into if their antenna got the right frequency?
While it's safe to assume the station is only for assassins, that isn't ever made explicitly
clear in the film.
The members of the guild seem to use special radios that could be encrypted, but it's never
addressed specifically.
If the radios aren't encrypted, there's the possibility the station is normally a standard
broadcast that is sometimes forced to do the bidding for the High Table from time to time.
The organization certainly has its fingers in many pies, after all.
John Wick is best known for his prowess at killing.
He spends most of the series' runtime killing countless goons and other highly trained assassins
with ease.
The only thing that gives away his humanity is that he sometimes seems a bit winded afterward,
with a few bloody scratches on his face and blood stains on his suits.
After all, that's why we go to movies like "John Wick."
Audiences want to see badasses be badasses and kill people in increasingly violent and
clever ways.
However, movies, even over-the-top action films, need a sense of stakes.
How is it, then, that John Wick seems relatively unharmed from so many falls?
It's not one time either.
You could chalk up his survival in "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum" to dumb luck and
perseverance, but it happens a couple of times in "John Wick: Chapter 4."
We don't mind when this happens to say, Batman or a "Looney Tunes" character, because surviving
great falls makes sense for them.
It's not so easy to brush off in the "John Wick" series, though, where gunshots, stab
wounds, and car crashes all do real damage.
The only way it'd make sense is if Wick turns out to have superpowers, or is secretly a
cartoon after all.
The "John Wick" films obviously aren't going for realism.
First and foremost, these are over-the-top action films, where one man can take on seemingly
hundreds of goons and only get slightly winded by the end of it.
Audiences are always going to be expected to suspend their disbelief to enjoy a film
like this.
One of the influences of "John Wick" is the spy flick, where suspension of disbelief is paramount.
This is why we see John wear a cool suit, practice all manner of martial arts, and use
specialized tech.
In this case, his tech includes his impenetrable black kevlar suit jacket.
"And what style?"
"Italian."
"How many buttons?"
"Two."
"Trousers?"
"Tapered."
"How about the lining?"
"Tactical."
It's fun action-movie logic that a slick, tailored suit can be made of kevlar and still
be lithe and mobile.
However, why doesn't it cause recoil from bullet hits?
It would, on a stunt and narrative level, make the fights more interesting if it didn't
feel that John had practically a force field protecting him in every fight.
The shoot-out scenes are still awesome and fun, but the film does lose a sense of danger
in many of the fights.
Still, for all our complaints about the kevlar suit, Reeves makes it look good.
"John Wick: Chapter 4" isn't a spiritual or supernatural film, and neither were any of
the other films in the series.
In fact, at one point, while Caine and Wick both reminisce in a church before their duel,
Caine asks John a pointed question
"Do you think your wife can hear you?"
"No."
So it's surprising at the end that while John slumps on the steps of the church, bleeding
to death from his injuries and Caine's bullet, he sees visions of his late wife, Helen.
"Maybe I'm wrong."
And given all the religious imagery throughout the film, such as the final duel happening
at a church and all the religious terminology the assassin underworld speaks throughout
the franchise, it seems like there could be a religious connotation to Wick's death after all.
By sacrificing his life to save Caine's daughter, he is absolved of his past sins to live in
eternity with his beloved.
Of course, the most likely answer for these intercut scenes of his wife is that John's
just remembering her.
They're simply the last things he's thinking about as he finally dies.
But who can really say?