REVIEW | Car chases, gun fights and more, the brutal John Wick: Chapter 4 is absolutely mind-blowing

John Wick's vendetta against the High Table has reached a breaking point. The cabal of assassins have so far been unable to stop him, but for every ten hitmen he takes down, one hundred take their place, and for every head of the organization he brings down, twenty more seem ready to take their place. As things come to a head and John finally finds a possible way out of this life, he will first have to face some of his deadliest enemies yet.

And to think, it all started because someone killed John Wick's dog...

I'm not going to lie; I was somewhat dreading John Wick: Chapter 4. Not because I don't like the series (I very much do, though it took me a while to come on board) but because I thought there was just no way in hell that an action movie – even a Keanu Reeves action movie – could possibly justify a near three-hour runtime. I already thought they were pushing it with the 130-minute John Wick: Chapter 3, but 170 minutes? Surely this was a sign that the series had well and truly spun out of control?

And you know what? It is too long. It never gets boring, miraculously, but no matter how brilliantly staged the action is, it does get exhausting, even numbing, after a while. Trimming things down by fifteen to twenty minutes would have made a world of difference.

Here's the thing, though: this slight case of self-indulgence is just about it for my issues with the film. I'm not quite sure if this is the best John Wick film, but it is the one where I really got it, where any and all of my previous reservations about the series went flying out of the window. To fully express just how wrong I think I was about at least the first two (I enjoyed the third film quite a bit already), let's just say that after sitting through 170 minutes of John Wick: Chapter 4, I found myself really wanting to go back all the way to the beginning of the series and give the whole thing a new look as a born again John-Wickophile.

I just flat out haven't had this much fun in the cinema since Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. Between some relatively underwhelming superhero films and unneeded sequels to Avatar and The Matrix, the big-budget, genre-driven side of Hollywood has been a bit underwhelming of late (Top Gun: Maverick aside, of course), so John Wick: Chapter 4 really scratched a certain itch that I hadn't noticed was there. What should, by all rights, feel tired and cynical by now turned out to be a massive breath of fresh air instead.

Chapter 4 takes everything that was great about the previous films and amplifies them while also feeling like a proper culmination of whatever came before. Without spoiling anything, I think it says something that Reeves and director Chad Stahelski seem reluctant to commit to a fifth chapter, even as various spin-offs are in the works. More John Wick certainly appeals, but this is such an excellent conclusion to his story that a 5th John Wick film now seems as redundant as the 4th Toy Story film still is.

So, what was it about Chapter 4 that had me finally realise the brilliance of John Wick to the extent that I never have before? "Well, pretty much everything" may seem a bit glib, but it's actually very accurate.

The action scenes are, for a start, absolutely mind-blowing. I mean, duh, right? This is John Wick we're talking about. But they really, really, really are. Forget the over-edited, quick-cutting set pieces of pretty much all modern action films not starring Tom Cruise (and Everything, Everywhere...); this is immaculately choreographed, beautifully shot stuff with lengthy single-shots capturing balletic but brutal fight scenes, car chases, gun fights, pistols-at-dawn showdowns, sword fights and even the odd Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-esque horse chases across the Arabian desert.

When asked by the film's producers what kind of action film they wanted to make, I'm pretty sure that Reeves, Stahelski and screenwriters Shay Hatten and Michael Finch (this is the first John Wick not to be written or co-written by series creator, Derek Kolstad) answered in one voice, a single word, and that word was "yes".

It's hard to pick a favourite set piece. Is it John Wick taking down a bunch of baddies in a Japanese hotel, alternating seamlessly between nunchakus and his trusty pistol? Is it the mad, literal bumper car melee around the Arc de Triumph? Or the greatest stairway fight in the history of cinema? Or maybe this incredible, single-shot, birds-eye-view of John Wick taking out dozens of goons with an incendiary shotgun that looks almost exactly like a particularly busy level of the video game Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris (but in a good way)? Maybe it's the packed club where none of the dancers are remotely aware of the carnage going on around them?

"Yes."

Just typing out those short summations of just a few of the film's very many set pieces is actually an easy reminder, though, of what may be this film's biggest strength (I'm not actually sure this was in place yet in at least the first John Wick film): it is joyously, unabashedly, hilariously, certifiably insane.

We last saw Keanu in the fourth Matrix film, and between the sci-fi world of that film and its corresponding John Wick, it's not the one with the virtual reality and out-of-control AI that's most unhinged from reality. This is a film where mass killings happen on crowded, metropolitan streets, and there's no hint of law enforcement (or ambulance services) in sight. This is a film where getting shot at point blank range is both barely noticeable and very easily dodge-able and where at least 90 percent of the Earth's population are professional hitmen, 5 percent are women, and zero percent are children.

I laughed and smiled all the way through damn near every minute of this film, and the more bonkers it got, the more I went with it. And for all that the film occasionally picks up on genuine existential themes and reminds us why exactly John Wick is doing the things he's doing, everyone involved in the film is clearly in on the joke.

Yes, including and maybe even especially Keanu Reeves. Keanu is clearly the straight man in the film as he continues to be utterly perfect as this silent, unstoppable force of destruction driven by grief, anger and survival who barely says a dozen sentences in the entire film, but his quietness and humanity only make the colourful, ludicrous characters around him shine all the brighter? What would returning veterans Laurence Fishburne and Ian McShane's scene-chewing be without Keanu's calming, understated presence; what would this film's big bad, the Marquis (played with flamboyant relish and maximum cod-Frenchiness by the great Bill Skarsgård), be without John Wick's steeliness to play against?

And that's not even getting into the rest of the film's seriously stellar cast, which includes the likes of Hiroyuki Sanada, Clancy Brown, Aimee Kwan, Shamier Anderson, the late, great Lance Reddick, and standing toe to toe with both Keanu and John Wick as the coolest blind assassin ever, Donnie Yen (give the man a spin-off!).

Stahelski, Hatten and Finch also smartly keep the actual plot fairly simple while expanding just enough on the whole mythology of this universe to keep things interesting. They understand that it is the characters, the humour, and the jaw-dropping action that keeps us coming back for more. And as long as they keep this up, even in the form of spin-offs, audiences will continue to lap it up. I know I certainly will.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE: