John Wick - Film review
I remember seeing the trailer for this film last year and needless to say I became excited to see how it would unfold on the big screen. The film is directed by Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, gaining them their directorial debut I believe. I think these guys worked with Keanu Reeves on stunt and fight scene co-ordination on the Matrix.
Admittedly, I did expect there to be some kind of Matrix feel to this film, especially as the main character, John Wick, was a retired hitman out for revenge. Instead of futuristic, unbelievable fight scenes, we are presented with a more gritty type of fight co-ordination and a lot of gun play. In fact this had me instantly thinking of a modern day western with guns going off right, left and centre. I was reminded of the film "Equilibrium" and its use of 'Gun Kata'. I just educated myself and learned that this is actually called Gun Fu, which is used in Hong Kong action films.
The film on a whole is pretty decent and the storyline works well. I did feel the Russian characters would have benefitted from actually being Russian. Alfie Allen (yeah Theon from Game of Thrones) plays the same kind of worm character but one minute he speaks Russian and then he has a perfect English/American accent and the Swedish actor, Michael Nyqvist, doesn't quite hit the Russian accent either. Nevertheless, this didn't let things down too much.
What I was disappointed with was the violence - and not from a moralistic point of view. It actually wasn't violent enough. The film was supposed to be portraying a dark underworld where hitmen and mafia life rules supreme. Yeah there was guns and fighting, but that's about it and I was left feeling a little underwhelmed by it. For example, there is one part where William Defoe is capture and beaten. They could have really used some of Quentin Tarantino's style of movie violence to really bring true dark nature of the underworld alive. Maybe they kept it at its present level to ensure a lower certificate rating and boost its audience but I really thought they could have gone for it here to allow the film to really shine through.
The cinematography is great and when John Wick returns to the hitman world on his quest for vengence there is subtle changes in the stylisation to change the tone of the film and I thought this was great. Add to it Keanu Reeves acting and we end up with a fair decent film here and one which is worth watching.
This film gets another one of my *** rating.
Its good and worth watching but there was elements which definitely could have been better but no doubt the directing duo will come back in the future with more hit films and I will be the first in the queue to watch them!
Happy watching my friends,
Jafwords.
The Jafwords rating system.
***** (Awesome)
**** (Almost awesome but with some flaws)
*** (To be honest it could have been better)
** (Struggling to say good things)
* (Dear director give me my money back)
Admittedly, I did expect there to be some kind of Matrix feel to this film, especially as the main character, John Wick, was a retired hitman out for revenge. Instead of futuristic, unbelievable fight scenes, we are presented with a more gritty type of fight co-ordination and a lot of gun play. In fact this had me instantly thinking of a modern day western with guns going off right, left and centre. I was reminded of the film "Equilibrium" and its use of 'Gun Kata'. I just educated myself and learned that this is actually called Gun Fu, which is used in Hong Kong action films.
The film on a whole is pretty decent and the storyline works well. I did feel the Russian characters would have benefitted from actually being Russian. Alfie Allen (yeah Theon from Game of Thrones) plays the same kind of worm character but one minute he speaks Russian and then he has a perfect English/American accent and the Swedish actor, Michael Nyqvist, doesn't quite hit the Russian accent either. Nevertheless, this didn't let things down too much.
What I was disappointed with was the violence - and not from a moralistic point of view. It actually wasn't violent enough. The film was supposed to be portraying a dark underworld where hitmen and mafia life rules supreme. Yeah there was guns and fighting, but that's about it and I was left feeling a little underwhelmed by it. For example, there is one part where William Defoe is capture and beaten. They could have really used some of Quentin Tarantino's style of movie violence to really bring true dark nature of the underworld alive. Maybe they kept it at its present level to ensure a lower certificate rating and boost its audience but I really thought they could have gone for it here to allow the film to really shine through.
The cinematography is great and when John Wick returns to the hitman world on his quest for vengence there is subtle changes in the stylisation to change the tone of the film and I thought this was great. Add to it Keanu Reeves acting and we end up with a fair decent film here and one which is worth watching.
This film gets another one of my *** rating.
Its good and worth watching but there was elements which definitely could have been better but no doubt the directing duo will come back in the future with more hit films and I will be the first in the queue to watch them!
Happy watching my friends,
Jafwords.
The Jafwords rating system.
***** (Awesome)
**** (Almost awesome but with some flaws)
*** (To be honest it could have been better)
** (Struggling to say good things)
* (Dear director give me my money back)
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