JOHN WICK

The Baba Yaga

Keanu Reeves as John Wick. Copyright: Warner Bros

Spoilers for John Wick (2014). Trigger warnings for a brief mention of animal cruelty

After four films of increasing outlandish fight sequences, an ever more invincible protagonist and globetrotting lore that just about holds together, it’s easy to forget what a tight, vicious little thriller the first John Wick is. It’s a remarkably economical film-making, especially in the opening sequence, and a perfect example of how to build up a character while still saving the largest set pieces for the end.

We all know the story, but I’ll still provide a brief recap because it helps to show how little John Wick (Keanu Reeves) does in the first half-hour. Recently widowed, John opens his door to find a delivery man with a puppy. The puppy was arranged by his wife, who knew that she was going to pass and knew that John would need something to focus on to stop him from falling into depression.

It works, for all of 24 hours, but a chance encounter with Russian gangster Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen) leads to a home invasion where John’s car is stolen and the puppy is killed.

Iosef approaches John Wick about his car. Copyright: Warner Bros

From here, the film falls into a fairly typical thriller. John, understandably enraged, quickly sets about taking revenge for this, but before the first punch is thrown or the first shot fired, the film has already done an incredible job of establishing what a threat John Wick is.

It does this through four wonderfully scripted, darkly funny scenes that occur directly after the home invasion. The first is Iosef taking the car to a garage owned by Aurelio (John Leguizamo). Aurelio works for the Russian mob and therefore must treat Iosef with a level of respect, but he instantly recognises the car and tells him to leave.

When they refuse, he tries to establish how bad the situation is:

Aurelio: The owner of that car, did you kill him or what?

Iosef Tarasov: No. I sure as hell fucked up his dog.

Aurelio: You fucked up his dog? That's what you did? You fucked up his dog?

Iosef Tarasov: Yeah.

Aurelio: That's crazy shit, man.

He then punches Iosef and pushes them out of the shop. Already it’s clear that whoever owns this car is not to be messed with, and Aurelio will not consider having it on the property unless John Wick is well and truly dead.

It leads directly into another scene when Iosef’s father, Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), calls Aurelio to find out why he felt compelled to throw a punch at Iosef. Aurelio explains that they stole John Wick’s car and killed his dog. To this, Viggo can only respond:

It's a great moment. We know that Viggo is a scary mobster, which was already established with Iosef’s various threats in the garage. And his reaction to hearing what his son did tells us everything we need to know about John Wick. The very mention of his name almost stunned him to silence. It’s economic scriptwriting. Aurelio doesn’t need to highlight the consequences of Iosef’s actions because Viggo already knows what is coming.

It’s a moment so good that director Chad Stahelski and writer Derek Kolstad would reference it at the start of John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017), when John attempts to get his car back from Abram Tarasov (Peter Stormare). When one of Abram’s lackeys asks why he is attempting to clear house before John arrives, Abram explains what his brother and nephew did in the first film.

Again, there’s only one response when you hear that John Wick is coming after you:

Back to the first film, and once the conversation with Aurelio is over, we get a little more backstory when Viggo confronts his son. It’s another moment with a perfectly timed ‘oh’ as Viggo explains John’s past. Saying that John Wick is the man you hire to kill the boogeyman.

John is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will... something you know very little about. I once saw him kill three men in a bar... with a pencil, with a fucking pencil. Then suddenly one day he asked to leave. It's over a woman, of course. So, I made a deal with him. I gave him an impossible task. A job no one could have pulled off. The bodies he buried that day laid the foundation of what we are now. And then my son, a few days after his wife died, you steal his car and kill his fucking dog.

Again, the film doesn’t waste time going into details. Before we’ve seen John Wick do more than start to dig up his tools of the trade, in a few short scenes, we understand that everyone is terrified of this man. We understand that he can do the impossible when placed under pressure, and we understand that Iosef’s transgressions will not go unpunished.

Viggo even hammers the point home by essentially abandoning his son in that moment. Saying that John will come and that there is nothing Iosef can do.

As an aside, while the company seem focused on expanding the John Wick series outwards to include the various factions within the world, surely there’s an excellent prequel in the story of John’s final mission for Viggo.

There’s one final moment before all hell breaks loose. Viggo, the scary gangster who has control over life and death in this world, puts on his reading glasses, searches out John’s number in his phonebook and calls our protagonist. He implores John not to give in to baser instincts and to let his son live. It's darkly humorous, seeing what in any other film would be a final boss style villain essentially beg the protagonist before the violence has begun.

Viggo confronts John Wick. Copyright: Warner Bros

A lot of films in the John Wick style rely on continuous action scenes to build up the myth of the hero. There’s the famous threatening phone call in Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008), but the antagonists have no idea who the hero is supposed to be. It’s simply something for the audience to remember.

Probably the closest film to John Wick is Nobody (Ilya Naishuller, 2021), but even here, the protagonist’s skills are hidden away until the first fight scene. We learn about the character gradually, seeing his skills at the same time as his opponents see them.

John Wick uses the myth of the character to build anticipation. The makers know what the audience is there for, but instead of overplaying the various action sequences, they create a lore around the character. A succinct legend that terrifies everyone who knows the name John Wick, and in doing so creates a level of excitement for the rest of the film.

Director: Chad Stahelski

Writer: Derek Kolstad

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Willem Dafoe