JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 — PARABELLUM
DIRECTOR Chad Stahelski
CAST Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Ian Mcshane, Asia Kate Dillon
PLOT Now excommunicado and with every hitman, hitwoman and hitchild hunting him for the $14 million bounty, John Wick (Reeves) is starting to break a sweat. Can he win back the favour of the assassin aristocrats of the High Table? And who’s going to look after his dog while he does it? JOHN WICK, RELEASED back in 2014, was the story of an all-powerful contract killer who executes 86 bad people in retribution for the demise of his puppy. With its main character a cross between Chow Yun-fat in The Killer and Shaggy in Scooby-doo, it seemed like a slab of pure, pumped-up escapism. Two sequels later, the original now looks comparatively like a piece of gritty social realism. The gloriously raucous John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum (surely a title no-one has ever spoken in full) cranks the volume dial still further, deepening the whackedout mythology and delivering a series of bushido brawls as inventive as they are wincey. And they are plenty wincey.
It’s hard to imagine it working without Keanu Reeves. There’s a fascinating dichotomy between the John Wick that the villains all whisper about — so lethal he gives ninjas nightmares — and the mellow insouciance of Reeves, a star with a gentle amble and kindly face. As he strolls from corpse pile-up to corpse pile-up, his zen mien makes it all seem fresh. It’s all part of the Wick films’ bone-dry wit: they are utterly po-faced even when, as is the case within the first ten minutes of Parabellum, the hero is deploying book-fu to eliminate an attacker in the New York Public Library. A comedy in which the characters rarely crack a smile, the sheer self-seriousness is exactly what makes it so much fun.
It makes no sense, at all, but go with it and it’s a blast. Never more so than here, with John forced to leave New York and head to the Middle East, at one point going full John Wick of Arabia. The last ten minutes falter somewhat in delivering a satisfying wrap-up, but otherwise it does a strong job of making Wick’s world bigger and richer, even filling in some backstory.
It’s with the action, though, where Parabellum truly delivers. The dust-ups, and they are frequent and grisly, are magnificently orchestrated by director Chad Stahelski and his stunt team, shattering more glass than Jackie Chan’s Police Story and throwing in a horse chase that makes the one in True Lies look like a tame trot. The crew from The Raid turn up for a riotous showdown, while Halle Berry makes a big impact with little screen time, as an equally dog-loving acquaintance of John, there not for a lame romance but a blistering set-piece involving canines in flak jackets. “Art is pain, life is suffering,” mutters someone at one point. Well, maybe, but at least in this film pain is endlessly entertaining and suffering something you’ll want to rewind.
VERDICT Combat-heavy pulp of the highest order, this is the most enjoyably over-the-top entry so far. Where else can you get samurai dogs and a Tarkovsky reference?