It began in 2014, with a dead dog. A gift arranged to be given to retired hitman John Wick (Keanu Reeves) by his wife, Helen (Bridget Moynahan), after her death, the beagle puppy was killed by the impetuous, bratty son of a Russian mobster. And so the retired hitman unretired, went on a revenge killing spree, and gave us a new, stylish action franchise. In the hands of director Chad Stahelski (and, for the first film, David Leitch, both of them stuntmen), the John Wick movies have built an elaborate, ritualized criminal underworld, while also consistently elevating the level of action spectacle, bringing it to an art form.
John Wick: Chapter 4 continues this trend, while adding an unexpected depth to the title character and franchise. It opens with Wick up against impossible odds. His actions in the previous two films have turned virtually the entirety of the criminal underworld, ruled over by the mysterious High Table (in this movie embodied by the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, a snarling young aristocrat played by Bill Skarsgård) against him. Wick’s solution to this problem: to kill his way out of it.
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