John Wick (2014)

John Wick. Oh.

John Wicke

So it's light on plot. Who cares?

Reeves protrays John Wick, a retired mob hit man. His wife dies in the first few minutes of the movie of unmentioned natural causes, and delivers him a puppy on the day of her funeral from beyond the grave. Well, courier, anyway.

John must put his life back together.

The son of a Russian mobster takes a liking to Wick's car, breaks into his house, batters him, kills his new dog, and steals his car. This is the first 10 minutes of the film.

John Wick kills 77 people. This is the rest of it.

John Wick kills people.

Stuffed with outstanding performances (noticeably,  Michael Nyqvist, Willem Dafoe, and Ian McShane) and stunningly directed action scenes, John Wick may be the best action movie in years. The world placed before us has some interesting ideas - hotels for assassins, assassin currency, etc - but by and large, this is action the way it should be done.

And bloody good, it is.

John Wick kills more people.

Laced and littered with spot on humor, Reeves makes his best film in years. He stoically guns down people like he's playing whack-a-mole. And he should be. Supposedly the best hit-man in history. Not a man to piss off.

I can't praise this highly enough for being exactly what it is. Keanu Reevs cooly killing people for the whole running time. Massive kudos to the Director, Chad Stahelski (who has no previous directing credits, but was a stunt co-ordinator).

This is old school action. No jump cuts. No flash camera work. Just a great movie. Just great.