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-

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN : Tuesday 16th February 2021.

I finally got around to seeing 'PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN' this week following its release in Australia on 7th January. This MA15+ Rated American thriller offering is Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Emerald Fennell in her feature film making debut. The film saw its World Premier screening at the Sundance Film Festival back in January 2020 and went on general release Stateside on 25th December 2020 having so far taken approaching US$9M at the Box Office and garnered positive Reviews. It was named one of the ten best films of 2020 by the National Board of Review, with Carey Mulligan also winning Best Actress, and has received fifty-three award wins so far plus a further 114 nominations including four nods at the upcoming 78th Golden Globe Awards on 1st March, including Best Motion Picture, Drama.

The opening scene of the film sees three male colleagues in a bar late one evening all ridiculing a female colleague. One of the men, Jerry (Adam Brody) notices what's look to be a very drunk young and particularly attractive woman sat all alone. Egged on by his colleagues he siddles up to the woman playing the concerned and caring gentlemen who offers to share a cab home with her to ensure she arrives safely. On the journey he suggests a stop off at his place which is close by for a nightcap. She complies with his wishes and once home and after said nightcap, the woman says she needs to lie down. Jerry seizes the opportunity to get her onto his bed and starts groping, kissing and removing her underwear. At this, the woman sits bolt upright and asks what the hell he thinks he's doing, now as sober as a judge. Jerry is somewhat surprised to say the least at the woman's sudden sobriety, and starts to backtrack as the woman gives him a very stern dressing down.  

It turns out that the woman in question is thirty year old Cassandra 'Cassie' Thomas (Carey Mulligan) who lives with her parents Susan and Stanley (Jennifer Coolidge and Clancy Brown respectively). They have breakfast together every morning and Cassie's mother especially berates her for not having a boyfriend, having no friends, for still living at home, and for having a near non-existent social life. Cassie responds saying that's just the way she likes it. Cassie works at a coffee shop owned by Gail (Laverne Cox), and there one day comes in Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham) whom nine years previously she was in medical school with. Ryan is now a paediatric surgeon, while Cassie who was the brains of their class is working in a dead end coffee shop! Ryan asks Cassie out, but she initially refuses his advances. 

A few nights later and Cassie is with Neil (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), once again pretending to be very drunk in his apartment. Neil snorts a couple of lines of coke and encourages Cassie to do the same, but she blows instead of snorts. Neil comes on all sympathetic and caring about Cassie's inebriated state and starts to grope and kiss her and puts his hand up her dress. At which point, Cassie reverts back to her completely sober state and asks what he thought he was doing. Neil is taken aback and starts to be fearful of the repercussions that Cassie might bestow up on him, and is left defenceless as she pins him against the wall and reads him the riot act. 

The next days Ryan is back in the coffee shop and again asks her out on a dinner date - this time Cassie responds in the affirmative. On their first date Ryan mentions that their former classmate Alexander 'Al' Monroe (Chris Lowell) is getting married soon. Now it comes out that at medical school Cassie was very close friends with a Nina Fisher who was raped by Al Monroe nine years ago. As a result, both the school and the legal system failed Nina and as a consequence both Nina and Cassie dropped out of medical school despite being Grade A students, and subsequently Nina committed suicide. 

Hearing the news of Al's forthcoming wedding, Cassie begins plotting her revenge on those she considers responsible for the rape and death of her best friend. She first invites an old friend from medical school, Madison McPhee (Alison Brie), who didn't believe Nina's accusations, to lunch at an upmarket restaurant and gets her drunk on Champagne and red wine, then has a man she hired take Madison to her hotel room. After the incident, Cassie ignores all of her many calls. 

Next, Cassie targets Elizabeth Walker (Connie Britton), the medical school dean who dismissed Nina's case due to lack of evidence. Cassie pretends to be a makeup artist for a band called 'Wet Dream' that Walker's teenage daughter Amber (Francisca Estevez) loves and tricks the teenager into getting into her car. Later, Cassie meets Walker under the pretense of resuming her education and questions her about the events that led to Nina's dropout and death. When Walker explains away her actions, Cassie tells her she dropped Amber off at a dorm room with a bunch of drunk male students, and not to worry!! After a fearful Walker apologises for her inaction, Cassie reveals Amber is safe at a local diner. 

Next up Cassie pays a visit to Jordan Green (Alfred Molina), Al's lawyer who harassed Nina into dropping her charges. When Green expresses remorse for his actions, having suffered a mental breakdown over his guilt and now on a forced sabbatical from his law firm, Cassie forgives him. After visiting Nina's mother (Molly Shannon), who urges her to move on, Cassie abandons the rest of her plans for revenge. And so Cassie's relationship with Ryan goes from strength to strength, so much so that the pair find themselves falling in love with each other. 

One day when returning home, Cassie finds Madison waiting outside her house, still distraught and desperate to know what happened after their lunch having woken up in a hotel room with a strange man with whom she has no memory. Cassie reassures her that nothing happened. In response, Madison gives Cassie an old phone containing a video of Nina's rape before telling her to never make contact with her again. As she watches the video, Cassie is shocked to see Ryan among the onlookers. She confronts him at the hospital where he works and threatens to release the video unless he tells her where Al's bachelor party is being held. Ryan tells her and begs for forgiveness, but Cassie refuses and turns her back on him.

Cassie arrives at Al's bachelor party as a stripper in a nurses uniform, plying Al's friends with spiked alcohol to knock them all out and takes Al upstairs to be alone. She handcuffs him to the bed which he willingly volunteers to, and then reveals her true identity to him. However, as she tries to carve Nina's name into Al's stomach, he breaks free from one pair of cuffs, overpowers her and suffocates Cassie under a pillow. 

The next morning, Al's friend Joe (Max Greenfield) comes up to the room, discovers a sobbing Al and the lifeless body of Cassie still under the pillow, consoles him and helps him burn Cassie's body to destroy any evidence. A couple of days later Cassie's parents file a missing person report, and the Police begin an investigation. A Detective questions Ryan at the hospital, but Ryan does not reveal where Cassie was going and states that they split up five days ago and suggests she was mentally unwell and possibly suicidal.

During Al's wedding reception in the grounds of the house where the bachelor party was held, it is revealed that Cassie had sent Jordan Green the phone with the video of Nina's rape, along with information on where she was headed and who would be responsible if she went missing. The Police begin to arrive immediately after the wedding ceremony, and with Police tracker dogs uncover the burnt remains of Cassie's body. At the reception in front of all the gathered guests, the Police arrest Al and cart him away handcuffed, while Joe flees the scene and Ryan receives several scheduled texts from Cassie, explaining that this is not the end, until it is. She signs off in her name and a ; )

This is a thought provoking, of the moment, pitch black revenge thriller comedy that starts of light but culminates in a real sucker punch by the time the end credits roll, that will leave an impression firmly planted in your brain long after you have left the theatre. For her debut movie making outing, Director and Writer Emerald Fennell has here delivered a bold, audacious, never boring and highly relevant film underpinned by perhaps a career best performance from Carey Mulligan playing completely against type, and she absolutely nails it. The rest of the principle cast are alas undercooked in the often fleeting scenes they are in, but carried along on Mulligan's coat tails which should propel her into the Best Actress nominations at this years upcoming Oscars. 

'Promising Young Woman' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

CHAPPAQUIDDICK : Tuesday 15th May 2018.

'CHAPPAQUIDDICK' which I saw this week is an American drama film based on the real life events surrounding the 1969 Chappaquiddick Incident. Directed by John Curran whose most recent Directorial outing was the 2013 Robyn Davidson Western Australian adapted story 'Tracks' with Mia Wasikowska, he here Directs this account of the true story which is described as 'a single-vehicle car accident that occurred on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, on Friday, July 18, 1969. The late night accident was caused by Senator Ted Kennedy's negligence, and resulted in the death of his 28-year-old passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, who was trapped inside the vehicle'. Further it states that 'according to his testimony, Kennedy accidentally drove his car off the one-lane bridge and into a tidal channel. He swam free, left the scene, and did not report the accident to the police for ten hours; Kopechne died inside the fully submerged car. The next day, the car with Kopechne's body inside was recovered by a diver, minutes before Kennedy reported the accident to local authorities. Kennedy pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of a crash causing personal injury, and later received a two-month suspended jail sentence'. The film Premiered at TIFF last September, had its US release in early April, and went on general release in Australia last week, having so far grossed US$17M at the Box Office off the back of a US$14M Production Budget, and garnered generally positive Reviews along the way.

Through factual accounts, laid out in the inquest from the investigations in 1969, the film examines the mysterious events and subsequent fall out around the drowning of aspiring political strategist and Kennedy insider Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara) after Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) drove his car off the infamous Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island. It is July 18th 1969, coincidentally, just two days after the Apollo 11 took off for the Moon landing that saw Neil Armstrong step foot on the surface on 21st July.

The US Senator for Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy following a televised interview, calls his cousin (and his 'fixer') Joe Gargan (Ed Helms) to organise a number of hotel rooms on Martha's Vineyard for the affectionately named 'Bolier Room Girls' (a team of female staff members who worked in Senator Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 Presidential campaign, and who were now in turn loyal to Ted's campaign). Ted Kennedy drives by car and short ferry boat crossing to Chappaquiddick Island where he teams up with Joe and Attorney General Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan) for a yacht race, in which he comes in ninth place due to a misguided tack. After the race he goes to a beach house with Joe, Paul, the Boiler Room Girls, one of whom is Mary Jo Kopechne, and various other friends and staffers for dinner and drinks.

Kennedy later leaves the party with Mary Jo driving a 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88. After a brief stop under the stars to chat about the legacy of the Kennedy clan and the expectations he must live up to, he attempted to cross the Dike Bridge (which did not have any safety railings at the time). Kennedy lost control of his vehicle on a blind bend approaching the bridge and crashed in to the Poucha Pond inlet, which was a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy escaped from the overturned vehicle, and, by his own account, dived below the surface several times, attempting without success to reach and rescue Kopechne. Ultimately, he swam to shore and left the scene, with Kopechne still trapped inside the vehicle gasping for air and unable to get out of the upturned vehicle.

Soaked through, he walks back to the beach house, and speaks in private with Joe and Paul, saying that his Presidential campaign has just ended. They drive to the scene of the accident and both dive in and try in vain to recover Mary Jo, but to no avail, with Kennedy looking on, distraught, from the bridge. Joe and Paul commandeer a row boat tied up nearby and ferry Kennedy across the water to nearby Edgartown insisting that he turn himself into the Police immediately. Instead, upon arrival back on the mainland, he heads to his hotel room, where he washes, suits up and calls his father Joe Kennedy Snr. (Bruce Dern) who is in very ill health and explains what just happened. Barely able to speak having suffered a stroke, Joe mutters one word down the phone to his son - 'alibi'! He wanders around making sure he is seen by another hotel guest at 2:20am and then retires to his room where he attempts to sleep. The next morning, the vehicle is discovered where it landed by a father and son out on an early morning fishing trip off the bridge. They alert the police straight away who arrive within minutes.

The local Chief of Police and the Fire Department recover Kopechne's body from the vehicle, and quickly discover that the car is registered to Ted Kennedy. Joe and Paul come to the realisation that Ted has not yet turned himself in, and further insist that he must do so. Agreeing, albeit somewhat reluctantly, Kennedy makes a call from a private pay phone where no one can listen in, or overhear, to mobilise his legal team and then he and Paul go to the Edgartown Police Department, and wait for the return of Police Chief Arena (John Fiore).

After reading a prepared statement to Chief Arena which he asks not be released to the already awaiting Press, Kennedy travels to the Kennedy Compound (a six acre waterfront property on Cape Cod along Nantucket Sound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts). There he meets with his wheelchair bound disabled father Joe who registers his disappointment with his son for bringing his family into disrepute.

Later Kennedy meets with his legal team headed up by Robert McNamara (Clancy Brown) who attempt to show Kennedy in a sympathetic light to gain national favour, despite some very questionable decisions by the Senator. Fortunately, the historic Moon landing is about to happen which is likely to deflect the national headlines away from the Chappaquiddick Incident buying the legal team much needed time to gather their thoughts and devise a PR plan to defuse the whole sorry matter.

Things however, soon backfire as a result of holes in Kennedy's written statement, it being leaked to the Press by an over zealous Police Chief, faux medical diagnosis, stating initially that Mary Jo was driving, and him choosing to wear a neck brace to Mary Jo's funeral in an attempt to retrieve some of his tarnished image - an act that he was much ridiculed for. Joe becomes increasingly frustrated and angered by Kennedy and his actions, believing that it lessens the death of Kopechne and has turned the whole issue into a circus. As Joe attempts to resign, Kennedy asks that he drafts his resignation speech which he intends to read out over a live national television broadcast later that night.

Finally, Joe can see that Kennedy is doing the right thing and agrees. The Kennedy's Presidential Advisor and speechwriter Ted Sorensen (Taylor Nichols) writes an apologetic speech for Kennedy concurrently, which the Senator decides to read over the television broadcast instead of Gargan's resignation speech. As the credits roll, we learn that a week following the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of the accident and was given a suspended sentence of two months in jail, denying that he was driving whilst under the influence of alcohol and that there was any impropriety between he and Kopechne. We further learn that he did not run for President in 1972 or 1976, but did run in 1980 in which he was defeated. He would later go on to serve in the US Senate up until the time of death in 2009 having begun his political career in 1962.

This film leaves you exiting the movie theatre with more questions than it answered, but nonetheless it is an intriguing story than moves along at a sober pace as it explores the hours and days immediately following this tragedy, and the at times farcical manner in which Kennedy tries to deal with it. Jason Clarke's central role as the troubled, emotional, battling with his conflicted conscience Senator Kennedy as his political aspirations gradually implode, is first rate and a convincing nuanced performance. As this incident occurred 48 years ago now, I would doubt that anyone under the age of 35 at least would have a clue about Chappaquiddick and what happened on that fateful night in 1969, especially given the overshadowing Moon landing event. So in this respect this history lesson is one that deservedly needs to be told, even though there may be a sprinkling of Hollywood poetic license wrapped up in this cautionary tale of how the power of privilege and entitlement can so easily outweigh tragedy and loss. A little more of Mary Jo's back story would have served the film well, given that her untimely death is the reason, albeit a tragic one, for the whole unfortunate series of events, and whilst Kate Mara's screen time is well delivered, more would have been beneficial in fleshing out her history as a Boiler Room Girl perhaps. Worth seeing for sure, and not necessarily on the big screen, but for a slow burning based on a true event story of the much troubled yet highly regarded Kennedy family, on which much has been written, filmed and speculated over the years, you can't go far wrong with this solid well scripted, attention to detail, thought provoking offering.

This film merits three claps of the clapperboard, from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-