John Wick

 

I usually don't care very much for the action genre. Heck, I mostly don't care for movies anymore. But there is one movie series that so far has done absolutely no wrong, and that's the John Wick series. Two and three took a really simple story and asked "How can we play out these consequences and make it interesting?", pushing the story into wilder and wilder places as John tries harder and harder to get out, only making it all worse and worse. But it all had to start somewhere, and for my money the first is still the best of a very good bunch.

Look, y'all probably all know the story by now: man's dog is killed and his car is stolen... and it turns out he's a former Russian assassin. He also recently lost his wife,  so he was emotionally devastated to begin with. Man then burns it all down in a fit of vengeance that rivals Homer. The simplicity is unparalleled. The beauty of the story isn't how simple it is, but that it only does that. We do not attempt to get into John's psyche. We know how he's feeling, and why, there is absolutely no need to get into it any more than they do. We don't ask where he is at the end of the story psychologically, because John Wick does not care. He did what he set out to do, you know how he's doing.

The action has a purity to it that you can't fake. You know that everyone who was in this movie trained and did their utmost to make as authentic a movie as possible, because you can see all the little things that they get right. Keanu's skills as an actor have been frequently laughed at, but his physicality is undeniable. He does what he does with a casualness that can only be arrived at from years of mastery. It's really sweet to see.

The acting itself is a lot better than it has any right to be. Everyone owns the parts, everyone's into it. Maybe that helps me with Keanu's performance as well? Dunno, but I feel like they wrote the movie around his personality. And that's probably what happened and all, but I feel like they gave Keanu a range that he knew he could do, he knew it, and didn't attempt to stray even a little bit out of it. And isn't that enough? The action's amazing, you don't really need fantastic acting, even if some of these actors are clearly class talent, all on their own.

This is a movie that is no muss, no fuss. It knows what it is, has no bones about only being what it is, and goes to great lengths to do what it should as perfectly as it can. The action is perfect, the acting gets the job done, the writing doesn't reach for anything its not, and it was all wrapped up with a pretty little bow. Every once in a while someone does a job so competently it's art. John Wick is one of those movies that, in the hands of lesser mortals, would just be another movie.

It's not.

There, a no fuss no muss review for a no fuss no muss movie!