Alex Didion’s review published on Letterboxd:
John Wick easily fits into the simplest definition of eye candy where its premise is begging to be absurd. Every neon-lit color of each setting seduces and draws you into the world of assassins filled with mesmerising world building and every scene of gunplay is nothing short of operatic. Not to mention that Michael Nyqvist is terrific as the head boss Viggo, in which he pulls it off with a monologue of the legend of the Boogeyman that is John Wick as if it was an ancient myth.
While there’s a lot said about the film’s brilliantly choreographed action sequences, including the centrepiece that is the gunplay in the Red Circle, there hasn’t been enough credit given for John Wick’s very quiet moments, in particular the film’s opening scenes. Before the ridiculousness of the storytelling sets in, the film establishes the character’s melancholia with bleak blue-grey hues and wide angles of his empty house, where he grieves for his deceased wife (the scene is much more interesting if you’re familiar with the sad Keanu meme, but it is much more depressing than hilarious when you look at its background). John Wick resembles the works of Jean-Pierre Melville if anything else. Director Chad Stahelski states that the film is influenced by Melville’s Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge and it’s easy to see why. I haven’t seen Le Samourai yet so I won’t comment on that, but there are some nods to Le Cercle Rouge that are strikingly clever and subtle. From the name of the nightclub to Reeve’s impression of Alain Delon, who in that film was suave and evocative with only a blank facial expression, but what Reeves adds to this persona is its character being burdened with the loss of his wife as well as a puppy who shares some of her spirit. Another quiet moment is within the hotel’s green-tinted nightclub where Wick is conversing with Ian Macshane’s Winston, the owner of the Hotel where they deliver small talk, rather than exposition that could add extra plot.
John Wick is an action movie made for people who are obsessed with detail and wished to be rewarded, as it is evident in its juxtaposition of its fastest and slowest scenes. This makes it well paced and its action much more economical, where very little of its storytelling is wasted.