John Wick - film review

The action thriller John Wick is good, simple-minded Hollywood fun. When his car is stolen and dog killed by three off-the-leash Russian mafia thugs, Keanu Reeves' title hero, a "legendary" hit-man retired and recently wife-bereaved, decides to re-convert ploughshares into swords. The thugs' boss, played with a thick accent and oodles of camp gravitas by Michael Nyqvist (star of the Swedish Dragon Tattoo trilogy), hopes to prevent Wickian payback by sending another bunch of thugs. Reeves KOs them. A passing police patrolman, knocking on the door and peering into the corpse-littered hall, says, "You working again?"

After that it's wham-bang with style and brio. More thugs; more fights; more colourful showdowns across New York. Useful lessons in hit-man lore are learned by the audience on the way. For instance, it's safe and savvy to murder baddies in a crowded, rock-till-you-drop dance club: so much ambient camouflage. And while it's not safe or savvy to leave the hotel bedroom curtains open at night so that le tout New York can take pot shots at you, you have probably figured if you are John Wick that your ubiquitous assassin friend Willem Dafoe might take pot shots at them first. Note also the deluxe hit-man hotel run by Ian McShane. Here contract killers get a good night's rest plus breakfast, on condition they don't conduct business on the premises.

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