There’s a set piece in John Wick Chapter 4 where John (Keanu Reeves) climbs a lot of stairs. As expected, he kills lots of henchmen and/or assassins when climbing these stairs, for there are many henchmen, and many stairs. When he gets to the top, the head henchman catches him by surprise, and kicks him down.
All the way down.
All the way down.
Of course, John Wick may get knocked down, but he gets up again, and this gag is a great way of capturing John Wick Chapter 4 – effectively, entertainingly, exhausting. It drags. It drags knowingly, and it drags beautifully. Anytime a group of killers shows up, we’re as frustrated as John is. They’re obstacles. They’re in the way, and John has to get them out of the way, and him getting them out of the way is so satisfying.
Each frustration gives way to a new release for that frustration. You’re annoyed when obstacles appear in traffic outside the Arc de Triomphe, and you’ll chortle when some of these obstacles are thrown into that traffic. When he comes across an entire floor of obstacles, two overhead long shots take us a little further from the action than we’re used to, but this distance allows for a greater absorption of John blasting these obstacles with incendiary shells.
Yes, the movie is just about three hours long. Roughly each of its three hours are dedicated to three separate stages for John. The first hour is dedicated to pure survival. Hiding in Japan, Wick resides with a friend for protection. The second hour is initiated when John discovers he can defeat the High Table in a duel, but he must get approval from his former family before he can ask for that duel. The third hour is him getting to that duel alive.
Essential to this endurance test is the overlap of sides. A Tracker (Shamier Anderson) swiftly hops back and forth between one side and the other, and yet his characterization is consistent. When The Tracker he saves John from another killer, both we and John know we’re not looking at a friend, just someone waiting for the price on John’s head to get a little higher.
However, the greatest source of tension comes from the blind Caine (Donnie Yen). We can empathize with Tracker’s overlap because of this world we live in: he’s in it for the money, like so many others, but that’s just the way of the world. (We also empathize with him because he has a dog, which gets you far in a John Wick movie).
Donnie Yen’s Caine, on the other hand, is a former friend of Wick doing what he’s doing for the tried and true purpose of family, as the arrogant Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) dangles the life of Caine’s daughter over his head. The two have an understanding: The Marquis gives Caine a name, Caine takes care of that name, The Marquis spares Caine’s daughter. In his first scene, Caine shows an impulsive sloppiness we wouldn’t expect from a master assassin, The Marquis gives him a name on a platter. When he reaches for the envelope, he hits the platter first. He’s holding the braille upside down, but even so, he only finishes the first half before he stops.
He knows the last name of this name. He knows it’s the last name of his old friend.
So, he cleans up, gets his guns, sword, his doorbell sensors that tell him the location of some unsuspecting fool, and goes wherever John goes, all because this jumped up little turd told him to.
Yes, The Marquis is, indeed, a jumped-up little turd. In a world full of master killers, he never exhibits any skill of his own. He’s like a bratty prince, sitting atop his throne, dispensing lives as punishment and inflicting injuries to prove dedication from the injured. Put him in a fair fight with Wick and he won’t last, so he makes sure the fight is never fair. The Marquis has no problem putting two friends against each other. He has the audacity to sympathetically tell Caine to “think of (his) daughter,” as if he’s not the reason her life is in danger.
In a world of Trackers, Caines and Wicks, a world where killing is just the way things roll and you don’t begrudge the guy trying to kill you anymore than you let him try to kill you, the pompous Marquis stands out as a particular frustration. A particular obstacle.
I highly recommend you watch the film to find out if Wick is able to clench his teeth in his direction.
