{"id":10662,"date":"2015-02-12T16:04:46","date_gmt":"2015-02-12T21:04:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10662"},"modified":"2015-02-19T11:30:39","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T16:30:39","slug":"dvd-john-wick-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10662","title":{"rendered":"DVD: John Wick (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"JohnWick\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: <\/strong>eOne<\/a>\u00a0\/ Summit<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a01 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0February 2, 2015<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Action<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0After killing the puppy left by his freshly dead wife and stealing his rare roadster, an ex-assassin hunts down the culprits with absolutely zero mercy. Many craniums are irreparably damaged.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 (none)<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Veteran stunt coordinator Chad Stahelski and colleague David Leitch respectively directed and produced this mean-spirited thriller in which a retired assassin literally takes a sledgehammer and cracks open the basement floor to extract his case of guns, ammo, and gold pieces to avenge the death of a puppy bequeathed to him by his just-dead wife.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a crazy hook, but it\u2019s all beautifully delivered in simple early scenes in which Wick has just lost the love of his life \u2013 the person for whom he left a life of death and sadism \u2013 and gets one day to bond with an utterly adorable baby beagle named Daisy before it\u2019s pummeled to death by a group of Russian car thieves, led by a mob prince (Alfie Allen).<\/p>\n

As the father (Europa Report<\/a><\/strong> and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo<\/strong>\u2019s Michael Nyqvist) of the not-so-princely thug states to his right-hand man (Oz<\/strong>\u2019s Dean Winters), Wick is a man of supreme focus<\/em>, and what follows for the rest of the film is total carnage as Wick deals out multiple headshots to pesky mobsters playing defense, working his way towards the scumbag prince before switching to the father, who happens to be an old associate.<\/p>\n

Derek Kolstad\u2019s script isn\u2019t new or novel \u2013 one could literally turn Wick into a vampire who once chose to lay low, retired from clan activities, and is brought back out of revenge much like the first two Blade<\/strong> films (especially the second<\/a>) \u2013 but it\u2019s Keanu Reeve\u2019s stark portrayal of a professional assassin applying his skills set with maximum force that make Wick\u00a0<\/strong>compelling and fun. He has nothing to lose \u2013 everything he\u2019s cared about is 100% dead \u2013 and that makes the slick, calm, analytical figure so affecting. Not unlike hitman Walker in Point Blank<\/strong> (1967), Wick has a simple goal \u2013 instead of wanting a promised paycheck, it\u2019s kill the killers \u2013 but people just don\u2019t listen, and won’t let him follow through with his reasonable demands: heads on a platter + classic car.<\/p>\n

The parallels to modern vampire action-shockers are very obvious: a grand killing spree in a glitzy nightclub owned by the mob \/ vampire clan where apparently no police will ever venture or enforce justice; a hotel that\u2019s a sanctuary for rival assassins \/ blood-sucking tribes with strict rules and punishments for miscreants, like free agent \/ Emma Peel variant Ms. Perkins (Adrianne Palicki); and like Blade, Wick has a mentor (Willem Dafoe), an aging assassin who looks out for him before he too is brutalized by rivals.<\/p>\n

The film is similarly dressed with a glossy, neon look, but unlike many vampire and revenge \/ action films, the stunts are real, the car chases use real vehicles, and Reeve\u2019s combat choreography is covered in coherent edits. These are\u00a0important points, because director Stahelski and cinematographer Jonathan Sela worked on A Good Day to Die Die Hard<\/a><\/strong> (2013), a film with an epic vehicular chase on a Moscow highway directed and edited with moronic incoherence. Clearly Stahelski wanted to showcase the beauty of stunt choreography and practical stunts on film instead of making generic \u2018hyper-real\u2019 sequences that would\u2019ve ruined Reeves\u2019 take on a driven, emotionally dead widower, and hacked up all that sleek choreography.<\/p>\n

The New York locations are first rate, and the score from Tyler Bates (Get Carter<\/strong>) and Joel J. Richard evokes atmosphere, energy and sadness while delivering kinetic electronic material.<\/p>\n

eOne \/ Summit\u2019s DVD is a full bare bones deal \u2013 a maneuver designed to push fans to grabbing the loaded Blu-ray edition \u2013 but the transfer is very clean, and the sound mix is nicely balanced with punchy and nuanced effects.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB \u00a0<\/a>— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Soundtrack Album Review<\/a> — Composer Filmograph<\/a>y
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran stunt coordinator Chad Stahelski and colleague David Leitch respectively directed and produced this mean-spirited thriller in which a retired assassin literally takes a sledgehammer and cracks open the basement floor to extract his case of guns, ammo, and gold pieces to avenge the death of a puppy bequeathed to him by his just-dead wife…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3372,3373,3374,3375,3371,1946,2245,438],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2LY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10662"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10662"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10786,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10662\/revisions\/10786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}