John Wick

After the death of his wife, all joy has disappeared from John Wick’s ( Keanu Reeves ) life, he only finds comfort and hope in the little dog daisy Daisy – a last souvenir of the deceased. But even that is taken from him when Iosef Tarasov ( Alfie Allen ) kills the animal and also steals John’s beloved car. But that was a big mistake because the inconspicuous man worked for Iosef’s father Viggo ( Michael Nyqvist ) as a hitman for a long time and was one of the best in his field. So the Russian, who has meanwhile become king of crimes, also knows what John is capable of and puts a high price on his former protégé’s head in order to protect his son’s life.

Dangerous Surf, Speed, ​​and of course The Matrix – with a series of extremely successful films, Keanu Reeves became one of the biggest stars of his time in the 90s. Twenty years later, however, there is hardly anything left of the former glory. His fantasy spectacle 47 Ronin failed at the box office, and nobody really wanted to see his directorial debut Man of Tai Chi either. That he should celebrate a comeback with the comparatively modestly budgeted John Wick, filmed by the hitherto relatively unknown David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, only very few would have expected that. But the result speaks for itself: the costs were recouped many times over, and the critics were also very impressed by Reeves’ return to the action genre.

This was certainly not due to the thin story – unless you take it satirically. In fact, there are always elements that indicate that the revenge thriller shouldn’t be taken too seriously. “It was just a damn dog,” John is told over and over again when he’s knocking over dozens of people. So it’s clear to everyone here, John Wick, that cause and effect are completely unrelated – as is usual in the genre almost bathes in its absurd exaggeration. And that also applies to the sometimes quite bizarre characters and the parallel world of criminals, where gold coins are used to pay, hotel functions as a business-free zone and some have specialized in removing the traces of corpses. In addition, Wick dances through hail after the hail of bullets most of the time, enemies fall to the left and right, but he himself seems to be immune to everything.

• John Wick