John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Keanu Reeves is back as John Wick, with Chad Stahelski once again directing, and writer Shay Hatten (who worked on the last film) now joined by Michael Finch, and many people are saying this is the best film in the series. I would disagree, but the third act has a number of major sequences that easily jostle for a spot amongst the action highlights of all four films.

Still looking for a way out of his predicament, John Wick is coming to the inevitable conclusion that he may just have to die. He won’t go down without a fight though, and aims to at least try to take down everyone who is sent after him. The armed goons are being sent in their droves by a determined Marquis (Bill Skarsgård), but the biggest threat comes from a skilled assassin who was once a friend (Caine, played by Donnie Yen) and a tracker (Shamier Anderson) who wants to keep Wick alive until the bounty on his head reaches his desired amount. 

I have complained about some other films that start at a point not allowing for any decent sense of escalation, and you might think that John Wick Chapter 4 would have the same problem, considering the first half of the lengthy runtime, but don’t worry. While there is a risk of fatigue setting in, considering how many fight moments consist of people shooting at one another while lifting up their Kevlar jacket collars to protect their face/head, there is just enough inventiveness and style to keep you entertained until you get to the moments that truly feel as if they are taking things to another level. Every main action set-piece set in Paris, whether it involves the busy traffic going around the Arc de Triomphe or some fluid overhead camerawork showing our hero destroying numerous enemies with a gun that fires out incendiary ammo, sets the bar about as high as it can go for this kind of thing. And I cannot tell you how many times I winced during a battle on some steep steps that saw one stuntman after another take many painful tumbles.

Reeves is still perfect in the lead role, more action than words (but able to show both his determination and tiredness while leaving piles of corpses in his wake), and all of the returning players, such as Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick (RIP, his role here is all the more poignant), and Ian McShane, continue to have great fun in their supporting roles, with the latter once again effortlessly stealing some scenes with a raised eyebrow or delightful turn of phrase. Yen is a formidable opponent, and brings with him the legacy of his entire body of work (I hope those new to his skills will hunt down some of his greatest hits), and the same can be said for the great Hiroyuki Sanada, in a relatively small, but pivotal, role. Anderson is good fun, and he gets to give orders to the talented killer dog in this movie (which is great, but sadly not as entertaining as the dogs owned by Halle Berry in the previous instalment). Then there’s Bill Skarsgård, playing his main villain - or, arguably, just the new boss charged with re-enforcing rules and fixing what was broken by Wick’s rampage - with a smug air of superiority, a general lack of concern for what he sees as the inevitable outcome that will go his way, and an entertainingly overdone French accent. There’s also room for Clancy Brown (always welcome onscreen, here lending his talents to the role of Harbinger), Rina Sawayama (playing the daughter of one main character, and someone who may end up on a revenge mission of her own one day), Scott Adkins, Natalia Tena, and the lower half of Marie Pierra Kakoma’s face as she DJs at a radio station named WUXIA.

The soundtrack is another corker (Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard also having been a part of the series since the first film), the production design throughout keeps things well-balanced to show us bright colours and neon lighting in between moments of stealth in more shadowy areas, and there’s an equally fine job done, as ever in this series, of blending the editing and special effects with an overview of the frenetic action.

I doubt the series will end here, but I will not be unhappy if it does. It’s hard to think of what they could do to top this. You have all of the violence and death, all enjoyably creative, you could hope for, but there are also a couple of thematic strands running through the whole thing that give it some more weight, and keep you remembering what everyone has at stake. And you shouldn’t underestimate the glee you can experience from watching our hero repeatedly smack someone in the head with nunchucks. It’s almost downright cathartic.

8/10

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The November Man (2014)

An action thriller from director Roger Donaldson (who has a lengthy filmography that you could call more eclectic than consistent, but is always worth checking out), The November Man makes perfect use of leading man, Pierce Brosnan, and jumps from one set-piece mixing smarts and violence to the next.

The very basic way to explain this movie is that Brosnan plays a retired CIA agent, named Peter Devereaux, who is called back in to service and ends up protecting Mira Filipova (Olga Kurylenko). A lot of people want Mira dead, and the main person heading up the pursuit is David Mason (Luke Bracey), a young man who was trained by Deveraux.

Based on a book by Bill Granger, The November Man is exactly the kind of movie that it shows itself to be from the very first scenes. The wiser elder agent, the hot-headed youngster, some twists and turns, and Brosnan looking unflappable for most of the runtime. 

The script, by Michael Finch and Karl Gajdusek, is decent enough. About as predictable as this sort of thing can do often be, it at least feels satisfying by the time things all come together in the finale. You’re not supposed to know who is actually going to be a hero and who is going to be a villain, but you can figure it all out at least a few steps ahead of the main characters.

Brosnan is on good form, even if he is reusing the kind of performance he already did so well in the Bond movies and The Thomas Crown Affair (as well as a few others from the past couple of decades). Kurylenko does well as the woman in peril, I always like watching her onscreen, and it’s an added bonus to watch one era of Bond work with another era of Bond girl. Bracey is also good in his role, being tough and determined to “win” at all costs, but also still weighed down by his connection to Brosnan’s character. Bill Smitrovich, Will Payton, and Lazar Ristovski all do their part in the main plot, playing various authority figures making life difficult for the lead.

Ultimately a bit too similar to a number of better movies, The November Man is still one that I would recommend to people wanting a bit of action couched in a plot attempting to pretend it is a bit smarter than it really is. It’s paced well, Donaldson directs with enough skill and confidence, there are some decent set-pieces, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, and Brosnan is effortlessly cool throughout.

7/10

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American Assassin (2017)

Based on the novel by Vince Flynn, with a script worked on by four people (including Edward Zwick), and starring quite a lot of people you couldn't exactly class as leading names in the movie business, American Assassin is a bit of a hard sell. I didn't even know if it was going to be a thriller or more of an action movie when I started watching it. It turns out to be an enjoyable blend of the two, and actually throws up one or two good surprises along the way.

Dylan O'Brien plays Mitch Rapp, a young man who has survived a traumatic incident and is now motivated to spend his time trying to infiltrate and destroy terrorist cells. Just when he thinks he is about to succeed, about to get his revenge, he is beaten to the punch by a U.S. Special Forces team. But every cloud has a silver lining. Mitch is delivered into the hands of Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton), a man who will train him to become part of an elite team, ready to continue the war on terror with a new, interesting bag of tricks. And Mitch, as well as his fellow soldiers, will need to remember everything they have been taught as they are tasked with finding a bunch of nuclear material that may already have been assembled into a powerful weapon.

After a wild opening sequence, American Assassin immediately settles into something a bit more low-key and interesting than you might be expecting. It's a film that both delivers the action beats and also keeps prodding at the psyches of the main characters, heroes and villains (with it sometimes being hard to differentiate between the two).

Director Michael Cuesta does a decent job of things. Some of the action is a bit choppy in places, and there are moments that feel far too heavy-handed and obvious, but it's all done with good intentions and attempts to convey information without ever feeling too patronising. The script feels smart and sharp, even while working through scenes in snippets of movie-grade reality (if you know what I mean).

O'Brien is fine in the lead, and it's good to see another movie like this without a muscular ass-kicker in the main role, and decent support comes from Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Taylor Kitsch, and even Scott Adkins, but the main draw here is Keaton, who lends his weight to something that would otherwise never be seen outside the confines of a bargain bin selection.

I can see why some will watch this and be disappointed. It doesn't always go for the easy option, and some of the action beats will feel too brief and messy, while Cuesta and the writers (Stephen Schiff, Michael Finch, Marshall Herskovitz, and Zwick) do their best to show that fights can be won by brains as well as brawn, but the way it at least tries to do something a bit different is why I ended up enjoying it so much. I hope others end up in agreement with me.

7/10

Out this week in the UK, people can pick up the Bluray here.
USA people can pick it up here.