John Wick: And the return of the 80s/90s Action Genre

 

 

 

 

 

 INTRODUCTION

So I'm ten years old, my friends and I are watching Rambo and other Classic 80s and 90s action movies like Hard Target, Commando, Die Hard and other interesting films and Also 90s films like mission impossible, Desperado and One interesting Film called the Matrix. This movie blew me away and i was wanted to have those cool powers of him flying, fighting so many bad guys, dodging bullets in that his icon pose that has been recycled in every spoof comedy movie ever showed countless times. This films were really apart of my childhood and enjoyed the fun bits of action and thrill that it brought. 

Decades later and those awesome gut wrenching films about big bulgy men, that look like balloons and carry big huge machine guns that are wailing at bad guys like your usual terrorists, gangs and other usual bad guy villain trope were long gone. Now the new age of action films were being introduced and the most interesting of them all is the now known franchise called John Wick. A movie that is not only going to be a nostalgia film for the new generation, but will definitely stand in the test of time as one of the best action films of the 21st century. 

A supposed B list movie, acted by one of the most shy, calm and composed actors Keanu Reeves who's career, seemed was going to a waste was revived by the amazing work of two stuntmen/ filmmakers named Chad Stahelski and David Leitch. John wick has a huge potential in the franchise landscape while Spanning TV shows, more movies, video games, comic-books and many more due to its intricate care of worldbuilding and narrative. with the new bread of action stars and action filmmakers as talented as Chad and David the action genre is here to stay.

STORY

The story centers around a grieving widower, named John Wick, who lost his wife to an incurable terminal illness and is leaving in a large house alone, with a vintage classic type model mustang car. He gets a gift from his wife Helen after her death, of a dog named Daisy. The dog was used as coping mechanism for his grief. He regularly drives his car in a hanger to ease his grief and drives frantically every time. He heads to a gas station to refill the car and he meets a group of Russians with their leader named Iosef. Iosef insists on by John's Car which John Says its not for sale. 

Later that night the Russian men broke to his house beat him to a pulp and kills Daisy. John lies there unconscious wakes up to a small pull of blood and grieves for the dog. Iosef takes the car to the chop shop and finds the owner there, who recognizes the car and punches Iosef and then chases him out of his shop. The owner of the shop gets a call from Iosef father who is leader of a Russian syndicate called Viggo and the owner called Aurelio tells the boss that he stole john wicks car. What Iosef didn't know is that John Wick was a famous killer that was dubbed "Baba Yaga". To protect his son he gets a two million dollar bounty on John wick.

THEMES

The story is a classic tale of revenge and grief. it simply weaves the story of the present and the past and how it connects in that your past can sip in and pull you back away from your present. A simple tonal classic tale that does cater to the ambiguity of the films of today and goes straight forward to thematic context at heart. 

RETURN OF THE 80s/90s ACTION GENRE

The classic generic action tropes i will say do exist and it does bring that semblance nostalgia to this movie, while at the same time bring a grit that the 80s/90s action films didn't have. The action set pieces and choreography bring an interesting take especially with the return of the action style of Gun-fu which is essentially Kunfu but with a mixture of guns.