John Wick: Chapter 4

‘How you do anything… is how you do everything,’ might as well be the epitaph on John Wick’s headstone; the final instalment in the ultra-violent, super-kinetic franchise gets everything right as it brings the John Wick box-office juggernaut to a close on a genuine high. Those of us who balked at the 169 minute run-time of Chad Stahelski’s high-octane action movie have been left to eat our words with garnish; if the first film proved to be an appetiser, the following trilogy, or should we say thrill-ogy, rose admirably to the challenge of how to end a great story; leave your anxieties at the door, because JW4 packs a knockout punch.

We pick up where Parabellum left off; the devious High Table are unsurprisingly un-amused by Wick’s rogue behaviour. After what must have been a very effective evacuation, the Hotel Continental in Manhattan is swiftly razed to the ground, taking with it concierge Charon (the late Lance Reddick). A revitalised Wick seeks a safe space in the Hotel Continental Osaka, and the first hour delivers more of the same with a ferocious series of fights as Wick evades capture. Things jump up a notch as the action moves to Berlin, and then to Paris for a dizzying series of brutal AF set pieces leading up to a final sunrise duel, overseen by Marquis Vincent de Gramont, played in fine style by Bill Skarsgård.

The makers of the last James Bond film should be frogmarched to their local multiplex to take an urgent lesson in how to complete an action movie cycle; everything No Time To Die did badly, JW4 aces with ease. Always a graceful mover, Reeves is the Gene Kelly of armed and hand-to-hand combat, and the last hour of JW4 offers several jaw-dropping moments (that endless top-down carnage shot must be a series apex) on its way to a finale that drills down on everything we love about Wick’ s desperate, lovelorn, stoic character; the climactic duel is an iconic end in the grand tradition of Sergio Leone.

Usually when critics demands an end to a franchise, it’s because it’s gone off the rails; with JW4, an end is required because they’ve finally nailed it. It’s been quite a ride, with none of the films dipping below excellent, and while spin-offs, tv shows and all kinds of ephemera are likely to follow, the John Wick movies proper end here. Bonuses include Clancy Brown, some apposite needle-drops (Nowhere to Run is just right for Wick), the usual streak of black humour, an astounding car-fu chase backwards round the Arc d’Triomphe, and much more. But JW4 also circles back to the first film, and (vague spoilers, I guess) finally re-uniting Wick with his wife, making this a rare, relishable moment of completion that the other films lacked; a franchise built around mayhem that somehow comes to a squealing stop on a sixpence. Like the corridor scene from Old Boy, drawn out over four movies, Wick’s endless fight against the faceless, venomous world finally ends here in style; John Wick’s fuse burns down to a sensational end, so get out your handkerchives and get yourself down to your local cinema to say an emotional goodbye to one of the great action-movie franchises.