#6 - Those Who Cling to Death, Live: A John Wick Movie Review

Sunday 6th of July, 2025

Category: movie-reviews

Tags: action

I just finished watching all four John Wick movies again, albiet all out of order. To be specific: three, two, one, four. I absolutely adore John Wick but in general I’m not a huge ‘action’ person. I mean, I used to watch Fast and Furious as a kid but it’s not something I would choose to watch nowadays. So it got me thinking – what is it about the John Wick franchise that hooks me in like a cat to Catnip (which I discovered today is actually a real-life plant that grows out of the ground; it’s not some manufactured drug made specifically for cats.)

John doesn’t have that many lines, like, at all. He is known in the movies as a man of few words, yet his presence, physical or not, annihilates any ounce of nerve you thought you had. You could probably fill an entire A4 page with all of his lines combined. Like when Viggo calls him to try to save his son’s life, John just doesn’t say anything for the entirely of the call, and then when Viggo’s English dude asks him what John said, Viggo simply replied, ‘Enough.’

The first John Wick sets him up as an already highly formidable character whose name alone sends shivers down your spine. There’s no long, drawn-out exposition of John’s origin story, no flashback sequences of his past. I’m not a fan of this type of storytelling; if there is something I need to know, show it to me, or at least lace it into effective dialogue. I just hate being read to like it’s a bedtime story. I’m asking out of genuine curiosity – if there are other movies quite like John Wick, please send your recommendations to hello@thechaotictype.co.uk.

But we need to talk about the action scenes, obviously. Is there a world in which John Wick’s bones get broken getting hit by cars or thrown off buildings? I think not. Although the fact that he got his nose broken in his house by Iosef right after his puppy was shot and then proceeds to not have a bulging, swollen nose for the remainder of the movie was a tiny oversight. What can I say, I’m a sucker for detail. And the way his opponents just accept their fate while he reloads his gun before killing them is a classic move.

Nightclub scenes are always fun. There’s always some banging background track that gets my veins pumping with adrenaline. Sidenote: I’m glad they carried on this tradition in the new spin-off, Ballerina. There isn’t much use of slow-motion in any of the movies, but I really enjoyed the scene where John had just been thrown off the upper deck of the nightclub and there are water features spraying all around him and he looks up in slow motion watching Harkan yell at his guys to run after him and then two seconds later the film speeds up again to John absolutely giving these guys what-for.

The more I think about it, my favourite action-y genre is probably hitmen/hitwomen with a vengence story. Like Black Widow and Yelena in the Marvel movies. Safe to say, I will be watching and obsessing over John Wick again in the near future. I will be making my kids watch them. Also, I will not tolerate another John Wick movie in which John is alive again or tells his origin story. Unless it’s good. We’ll see. Leave the man in peace.