Lionsgate

R. 101Min

The studios like to hold off they're big releases until the holiday season gets a little closer and usually have something sitting around on the shelf to fill a gap in the release schedule. It seems that's what they've done with Keanu Reeves latest action thriller JOHN WICK.

OK I know what you are thinking. O Keanu Reeves, this review is probably going to be another blistering attack. Actually, unlike Pauly Shore, I don't think Reeves is completely worthless. I don't believe he's a great actor and he often times seems to take himself too seriously and even more often accepts roles in less than stellar films.

So as the season of love approaches allow me to offer an olive branch.

I actually thought JOHN WICK could have easily been an entertaining couple hours of Good Old Fashioned revenge based violence. And Keanu Reeves was as good as anybody I could think of to play the sullen monosyllabic ex killer who like Michael Corleone, who thought that he was out but... Well you remember the quote.

The film itself has something of a surrealistic feel to it, with an entire underground society of killers with their own specific but strict set of rules.

Wick (Reaves) had been one of the meanest of the bunch but hung up his pistols to grieve the death of his beloved wife.

You have all heard my dog theory as it relates to plot devices right? They select an innocent person, often elderly disabled or even a real dog, to be killed or brutalized by the bad guys to pump up the audience hate for them. In this case it's an actual dog that is killed by the son of a Russian mobster who had ironically been on decent terms with Wick.

From that point on it’s just like my favorite James Woods line, "you die, the girl dies, everybody dies"

That's really all there is to it all the way through the relatively predictable and slightly disappointing climax. I was hoping, since the kid was such an abject asshole, that Wick would have spent a little extra time killing him but oh well.

They biggest problems here are the shoddy production values and second rate direction. I think with some cooler sets and a cutting edge director like SIN CITY'S Robert Rodriguez this could have kicked ass.

As it is it seems more like a low budget quickie.

And none of this is the fault of Keanu Reeves. There. I said it.

C+

WSS