JOHN WICK : CHAPTER 4 - Tuesday 28th March 2023.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'JOHN WICK : CHAPTER 4' this week, and here we have the continuing saga in the 'John Wick' franchise that is once again Directed and Co-Produced by Chad Stahelski following his earlier successes with the 2014 debut in the series 'John Wick', then 2017's 'John Wick : Chapter 2' and 2019's 'John Wick : Chapter 3 - Parabellum'. Those first three films grossed globally a total US$587M off the back of combined production budgets of US$145M. Originally set for worldwide cinematic release on 21st May 2021, 'John Wick 4' was delayed first due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then Keanu Reeves's commitments with 2021's 'The Matrix Resurrections'. This film saw its World Premier in London on 6th March and was released worldwide from last week, having garnered positive critical reviews and grossed so far US$153M off the back of a US$100M production budget. 

The film opens up with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) returning to his underground hideaway where John Wick (Keanu Reeves who also Executive Produces here) has been recovering after being shot by Winston (Ian McShane) at the end of the last film, and is in training to get back into shape so that he is best prepared to exact his revenge on the High Table. We next see John riding horseback across the desert sands of Morocco chasing after three horsemen, whom he eventually guns down, before meeting with the Elder, who sits above the High Table, and whom he also shoots dead. 

Responding to this development, the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), a senior member of the High Table, summons the New York Continental Hotel Manager Winston and his concierge, Charon (Lance Reddick) to his very plush offices overlooking the city skyline and down across to the Continental. De Gramont explains to Winston that the High Table has given him unlimited resources to find and kill John Wick. He berates Winston for his failure to assassinate John when he had the chance to do so. As a consequence, De Gramont strips Winston of his duties as Manager, declares him as 'excommunicado', destroys the Continental, and shoots Charon in the chest, killing him. We next see De Gramont in Paris where he enlists Caine (Donnie Yen), a blind, retired High Table assassin, to kill his old friend John, threatening to murder his daughter if he declines, or fails to do so.

John takes refuge at the Osaka Continental Hotel, run by his long term friend Shimazu Koji (Hiroyuki Sanada). De Gramont's right-hand man Chidi (Marko Zaror), supported by many High Table assassins and Caine, arrive to investigate the hotel, looking for John. Koji's daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama), the hotel's concierge, evacuates the hotel just before Chidi announces that the High Table have 'deconsecrated' it, resulting in a battle royale between Chidi's men, Koji's men, John and Akira. 

John fights through waves of armoured assassins, and a showdown with Caine is interrupted by a bounty hunter who calls himself 'Mr. Nobody' (Shamier Anderson). He helps John's escape after determining the contract money for killing him falls short of his expectations. Caine allows a wounded Akira to flee after killing her father, but upon leaving she swears to exact her revenge on Caine, to which he responds with 'I'll be waiting'. 

John returns to a snow covered New York and meets with Winston at Charon's gravesite. Winston advises John to invoke an old High Table tradition and challenge De Gramont to a duel. Winning will free him of all obligations to the High Table. The over rider is that John can only request a duel on behalf of a crime family. And so John travels to the Berlin headquarters of Ruska Roma, with whom he had severed all ties, to request readmission. His adoptive sister Katia (Natalia Tena) allows John to rejoin in exchange for dispensing with Killa (Scott Adkins), a High Table senior who murdered her father. Although Killa sets up an ambush at his nightclub with both Caine and Nobody there too, John still manages to kill him, but not before taking a beating himself, and wins back his status within Ruska Roma.

Winston takes John's formal challenge to De Gramont, who is initially dismissive of the notion but then reluctantly accepts when he realises he has no choice. As part of the deal he asks that the New York Continental be rebuilt funded in totality by the High Table, with him being reinstated as Manager, should John win, to which De Gramont reluctantly agrees.

In Paris, John and De Gramont decide the parameters of their duel in a meeting moderated by the Harbinger (Clancy Brown), the Table's emissary. De Gramont nominates Caine to fight in his place. The duel is to take place with duelling pistols on the following sunrise just after 6:00am at Sacre-Coeur, with John and Winston being executed should either fail to appear on time. 

The Bowery King arrives in Paris and meets with Winston and John to give John a weapon and a new ballistic three piece suit.

De Gramont hatches a plan to prevent John from arriving at the duel in time by placing a US$26M bounty on his head, which leads to a frenetic sequence around the Arc de Triomphe with John fighting off hordes of assassins on his way to Sacre-Coeur, including Nobody, who negotiates a bounty increase to US$40M with De Gramont when it looks as though his plan is failing. During their confrontation, John prevents Chidi from killing Nobody's dog, and so a stunned Nobody decides to abandon his pursuit of John, and subsequently kills Chidi on the steps leading up to the Sacre-Coeur. 

After Caine and Nobody assist John in the 220 steps that leads to Sacre-Coeur by taking out another horde of assassins and De Gramont's henchmen, they reach the summit just in time for the duel. Caine takes his place opposite John for the duel, while Nobody watches on from the sidelines with his trusted dog by his side. Each inflicts serious wounds on the other through two rounds of duelling, first at a distance of thirty paces then twenty paces. The third round at a distance of just ten paces, comes to a halt when Caine mortally wounds John with a shot to the gut. Demanding the right to administer the coup de grace, De Gramont immediately steps up and swaps places with Caine. However, as Gramont stands over John pointing the loaded pistol at him, Winston perks up with 'you idiot, he didn't fire his third bullet', with which John shoots and kills an unsuspecting De Gramont with his single pistol bullet cleanly in his forehead. 

The Harbinger grants Caine and John their freedoms from all obligations to the High Table, Winston is reinstated as the Continental Hotel Manager and the hotel will be rebuilt at the High Table's expense. John stands, and turns to Winston and asks that he takes him home. After collapsing on the staircase, John has a vision of his life and marriage before peacefully succumbing to his wounds. Later, back in New York, Winston and the Bowery King say their farewells to John at a gravesite where he is buried next to his late wife, Helen, with the tombstone reading John Wick, Loving Husband, next to his wife's which reads Helen Wick, Loving Wife. 

'John Wick : Chapter 4' certainly ups the ante on the action set pieces, the majestically choreographed fight sequences, the bullet ballet and the trademark gun fu that our titular action hero is renowned for. The body count, which must stretch well into the couple of hundred here all at the hands of one single man, is relentless and I have to say repetitive, with my mind wandering towards the end and thinking when will all this wrap up? And despite John getting thrown off high balconies, crashing through a second storey window and landing on a car roof below, getting hit by various cars and hurled against others and being thrown down 220 steps to land in a crumpled heap at the bottom, he seems to get up, dust himself down, and carry on with killing the bad guys with nary a scratch to show for it - like he's Superman - and maybe he is, until he's not! Including the credits (which you have to sit through if you want to catch the end credits scene) this film borders on three hours, which is easily thirty minutes longer than it needed to be, but that said it never leaves you wanting as it lurches from one action sequence to the next, to the next and so on right up to the satisfactory conclusion that for now at least, seems to put a lid on this franchise that has redefined the action genre and set the standard by which all other films of the ilk will be judged. 

'John Wick : Chapter 4' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-