Okay… after the last three films turned out to be absolute shockers, I figured I’d hedge my bets on something that wouldn’t make me burst a blood vessel in anger. And for a modern action movie, it’s hard to think of a production in more stable hands than this one. From the director of the (in my humble opinion) criminally underrated Hardcore Henry, and the writer of John Wick (with Wick co-director David Leitch also on hand as producer), I was gearing up for something that matched those levels of transmedia fusion and world-building splendour. But I didn’t get that. No, these guys just found different avenues to make something awesome.
While it certainly looks a lot more traditional than the first-person-shooter influences of Henry, the visuals here do stand up to director Ilya Naishuller’s primary background as a musician and music video director. The needle drops in this thing are all classic American tunes, from the Nina Simone bookending of Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood to Pat Benatar’s Heartbreaker backing a truly whacked-out car chase, and the way they match up to the visuals makes for genuinely impressive filmmaking. The crackle of dusty vinyl matched with the sparking of fires that destroy past lives and façades; 87Eleven (or 87North, as Leitch’s production company has been rebranded) continues their pedigree for highlighting the action genre as its own artform.
And speaking of the action specifically, holy shit, this is some premium havoc being wreaked on screen. Beyond how hard the hits get, how creative the weaponry can get (especially during the warehouse finale), and how well the actors sell every second of it, it’s the remarkably smooth acceleration that makes it all work. It starts out small, with the relatively-docile opening break-in, then a bare-knuckle throwdown on a bus, then guns get involved, and by the end, it has transitioned into full-blown grin-demanding carnage. It may not be juggling different media to tell its story, but the balls-to-the-wall ingenuity in the staging is still in abundance.
As for the story, and the people who push it forward, writer Derek Kolstad reels back on the panoramic detail that makes the John Wick universe so enthralling and dips more into strictly character-based writing, primarily to do with the titular Nobody in Bob Odenkirk’s Hutch. Now, initially, it seems to give the impression that this is all going to be a commentary on masculinity, with numerous characters bringing Hutch’s manhood and ability to protect his family into question when he doesn’t end up hitting anyone in that first break-in… even though, through his actions, none of his family got seriously hurt. But as the action ramps up, it ends up discarding that for a truly escapist tone, where (again, much like Hardcore Henry) it’s meant to be taken as entertainment that ultimately isn’t taking itself super seriously.
Not that that attitude becomes a symptom of the writing at large, thankfully. In establishing Hutch as someone no one should fuck with, it’s kept vague enough where there’s still an air of mystery to him (helped by the running gag of his attackers dying while he’s trying to give his backstory), but the details we do get, combined with Odenkirk’s phenomenal performance, make all the hushed tones his character is treated with feel warranted.
It maintains Kolstad’s knack for gesturing at relationships between characters without fully revealing them on-screen, hinting at stories before all this takes place, and while there’s hints of the ‘retired killer reluctantly brought back into the fold’ themes of John Wick, the more emphatically domestic spin it gets through Hutch makes it fit without feeling derivative. Hutch pines for a more ordinary family life, but is only truly himself when he’s laying waste to his enemies. And after seeing how effectively he does that, it’s difficult to argue with that notion.
I honestly don’t have a bad thing to say about any of this. Every actor on-screen works (Odenkirk could be on the cusp of a new turn as a genuine action star, and surprisingly, the RZA and Christopher Lloyd aren’t far behind), every scene feels like it has purpose, and as an action-thriller first and foremost, it is pretty damn exciting and I got quite spirited watching Hutch destroy everything in his path. It sticks to the traditional action hero formula, but shows so much creativity and finesse in its presentation to forgive even the slightest inkling that it’s familiar to any other film out there. I met this film on its own terms as entertainment rather than profound statement on anything in particular, and quite frankly, the degree to which it failed to disappoint is staggering.
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