At Wick's End

John Wick: Chapter 4 had me from the Lawrence of Arabia reference, and there’s no point pretending it didn’t. A nearly three-hour film opening with a literal match cut from a hushed conversation to an exquisitely rendered desert landscape, with Keanu Reeves riding out of the burning sun? That’s a statement of intent. This is going to be a proper epic.

The John Wick films have consistently gotten longer as they’ve expanded the first film’s world of international mercenary assassins, adding more bulk along with the strata of loyalties, rivalries and High Table nobility Reeves’ heartbroken murderman keeps confronting and destroying in chapter after chapter. But Chapter 4 is a different animal, the result of Reeves and producer-director Chad Stahelski compressing two features into one gargantuan shoot-em-up, criss-crossing the globe to deliver nearly three hours of complex set pieces – and a definitive end to the quest of Jonathan Wick. No spoilers, but it’s the one the character has been moving towards all along – and one I’d argue he’s earned.

Chapter 4 thus carries a certain gravitas that comes with being The Last One in a franchise, but it’s the same gravitas that was always present in Reeves’ performance; the movie’s just catching up to its star. I remain aghast that there are still people who see Keanu Reeves as a one-note actor; the work he does here is without precedent in his career, using his entire body as an instrument of emotional expression and the timbre of his voice as a sort of aural health-points bar. The John Wick movies nod in the direction of videogames here and there – you’ve likely seen a gif or two of Chapter 4’s top-down sequence – but that’s the most obvious one.

And in John Wick: Chapter 4, John Wick is exhausted. He’s still mourning his wife and that puppy, the whole world has been trying to kill him for, like, three straight weeks, and he can’t get a decent meal anywhere. By the time this movie properly begins, he’s traveled from America to Morocco to Japan to ask for sanctuary at the Osaka Continental from his last remaining friend, Koji (the venerable Hiroyuki Sanada). John tells Koji he wants to bring it all down. Koji is frank about John’s prospects of surviving. It’s one of the finest scenes in the series, because it’s two old friends talking about facing the end. And while it’s true that almost all of the dialogue exchanges in this franchise are about death, this one cuts through the bullshit: John Wick wants all this to be over.

The thing is, Koji’s daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama) knows he won’t go down alone: Sheltering the exiled Wick will bring hell down on them as well. But Koji is loyal; he respects and loves his friend, and wants to help as much as he can. It gets him killed, of course, by yet another of the old guard: The blind swordsman Caine, played by Donnie Yen because who else would you cast as a modern Zatoichi but Donnie Yen?

Oh, and also there’s Wynonna Earp’s Shamier Anderson as a nameless character called The Tracker, who has hit on a novel strategy of bounty hunting: He’ll pick off anyone chasing the price on John Wick’s head until said price is high enough – $20 million ought to do it – and then he’ll take John Wick out himself. This is very sensible for the John Wick franchise, and also he has a very nice dog, which tells us he’s not quite as cold-hearted as seems.

As the franchise has expanded its reach from “there is a secret fraternity of assassins who move unnoticed through the world” to “you know what, literally everybody knows about the murdermen, they just try to stay out of their way” the John Wick movies have developed a cheerful absurdity about the logistics of its elastic reality. The suits are bulletproof, so all someone has to do is shield their face with their forearm to protect from headshots! Also they’re made of lightweight Kevlar so you can do acrobatic stuff and get hit by cars and bounce off the pavement and it barely slows you down!

It’s all preposterous, but Reeves sells it – when he takes a hit, he grimaces in irritation rather than pain – and the gradual shedding of physical limitations has allowed Stahelski and his stunt team to develop their action sequences from simple shootouts to deliriously complicated ballets of fight choreography and improvisational physics.

The John Wick movies deliver the thrill of physical engagement like no other modern series; the Fast & Furious and Mission: Impossible movies have more complex car chases and high-altitude action, and the Creed films are playing with the tactics of boxing in increasingly daring ways, but the John Wick films operate on one very simple premise: Isn’t it thrilling to watch Keanu Reeves get in a pickle, sharpen that pickle into some sort of edged weapon and use his pickle-knife to slash his way through dozens of armed goons while also shooting them in the face with their own automatic weapons? And it is. It always is.

Lionsgate’s John Wick: Chapter 4 discs have the same set of supplements on their 4K or Blu-ray editions; there are eleven featurettes totaling a little over an hour of material that forms a somewhat self-congratulatory overview of the production. It’s not all generic: Donnie Yen gets the spotlight he deserves in “The Blind Leading the Fight”, and “Killing at the Speed of Traffic” breaks down the impossibly complex Arc de Triomphe set piece that forms the climax of the second act. No commentary track, which is a shame, but it’s possible Stahelski feels he’s said all he had to say in the tracks he recorded for the first two films. Also, he must have been wiped by the time he finished this. It’s a monster.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is now available on 4K and Blu-ray from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. And DVD too, I guess, but why would you want to watch a movie this pretty in standard definition?

Coming up in this week’s paid edition: Criterion gives Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game a 4K upgrade, and Paramount does the same for the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Update your subscription to see how I connect them!