While it may sound like a contradiction in terms —it really isn’t when one looks at the previous movies — for a film whose DNA is infused with violence, there is a sense of quiet calmness in John Wick: Chapter 4, allegedly the final installment (and yet not the final installment) of the action franchise that re-catapulted Keanu Reeves’ action-man career after the Matrix movies.

For every bloody fight, there is a moment of whispered revelation and deep insight into the secret fantastical world of assassins that’s governed by The High Table — the corporate-minded overlords of the killing-for-hire business who are sticklers for stringent rules.

To think it all started with the killing of a dog. Wick’s (Reeves) pet, and finite reminder of his dead wife (Bridget Moynahan), was the trigger that sent the man on a killing spree back in 2014’s first John Wick.

For a man who had nothing to live for, save the dog, Wick has been resilient against assassinations. In every succeeding film, he has been sicced by hundreds of bounty hunters, who slashed and gashed his body with blades, punctured bullet holes in his arms and legs, or slammed him on the pavement. Yet for every battery — painful and fun to behold — Wick tumbles and staggers through, not necessarily wiser, but rightfully vengeful.

There is a sense of finality in John Wick: Chapter 4 in what could be seen as a tying up of loose ends

As a fabled, high-ranking ex-assassin, Wick has been on the run from an eclectic bunch of killers for four movies now. As the main series draws to a close — and yet a spin-off movie featuring a character called The Ballerina (Ana De Armas taking over the role from Unity Phelan in Chapter 3: Parabellum), and other possible sequels and continuations manifest — one wonders: despite the end, is it really over?

Probably not. The studio has made that clear, at least. The franchise is, apologies for the pun, making a killing at the box-office (in 11 days, the film has grossed 245 million dollars against a production budget of 100 million dollars).

Still, there is a sense of finality in Chapter 4, as Wick travels from New York to Morocco to Osaka, and then back to New York, Berlin and Paris, in what could be seen as a tying up of loose ends.

Wick’s first order of business at the start of this movie is to eliminate the Elder (or as he is called, the one who sits above the Table). The man, of course, had it coming, like most of the baddies vying for Wick’s head. This unfathomable act cues up the resulting film-wide melee.

Sent on Wick’s trail is friend-turned-killer, the blind assassin Caine (Donnie Yen, one of the best additions to the franchise and a character worthy of his own spin-off movie), a bounty hunter called Mr Nobody (Shamier Anderson), and about a hundred other hired killers (Scott Adkins, near unrecognisable in an big purple bodysuit, plays one of tough baddies).

The main villain in this story is Marquis Vincent de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård, ho-hum), a high-ranking member of the High Table authorised to snuff Wick by any means.

Wick’s support group includes an equally audacious line-up: The Bowery King (Lawrence Fishburne), Charon (Lance Reddick), Winston Scott (Ian McShane), Shimazu Koji and his daughter Akira (Hiroyuki Sanada, Rina Sawayama). These are great characters played by great actors, who do their bit to add sombre gravity to the routine.

The storytelling pattern is quite unimaginative and one-dimensional, but that — and the long running time of two hours and 49 minutes — doesn’t really hinder the experience.

Director Chad Stahelski, a former action choreographer who hit it big with the first John Wick entry, has clarity of vision when it comes to staging action. Unlike the sacred rule of the thumb in filming and cutting action (action is always cut fast to add a sense of intensity), Stahelski forces restraint in the use of angles and cutaways in the edits.

Like old Jackie Chan films, though less comedic, where the camera stays locked in medium or wide frames, one sees intricately staged fight sequences in their unabridged form. Given the ferocity and nimbleness at display, one forgets that these sequences were choreographed and practised to perfection months ahead of shooting.

There is grace and elegance in what happens on the screen, whether Wick and co. fight off hitmen in tube-lit corridors of a high-profile hotel, evade speeding vehicles in a mid-traffic skirmish, or brawl through a torrent of tumbling bodies at the staircase of the Sacré-Cœur in Paris.

By the end — which could have been emotional, yet wasn’t (it felt rushed) — there is no denying that Reeves’ Wick had been through enough. Lumbering, heaving, weighed down, yet soldiering through, one sees the toll on Wick courtesy of Reeves’ very subtle body movements (yes, there is a measure of acting involved on Reeves’ part).

Perhaps, one thinks, it is time to say goodbye to John Wick…but, then again, given the likeability of the character and his eccentric world, one doesn’t want the ride to end just yet on the big screen (a note to studios: don’t ruin the franchise by turning it into a series).

John Wick: Chapter 4 is playing worldwide, and is slated to release on Eid-ul-Fitr in Pakistan. The film is rated R for the usual bang bangs, blood splatters and bone crunching

Published in Dawn, ICON, April 9th, 2023