With John Wick, Keanu secures his legacy as a film star for the Taken generation (being Hollywood actors in their 50s and 60s who want to play taciturn hardmen). Reeves isn't a natural fit in that bracket, despite being 50. Unlike king-of-the-genre Liam Neeson and upstarts Sean Penn and Kevin Costner, he still looks 24.
But I think unlike those guys, Reeves picks projects out of love. He's a geek who isn't just after a box office rocket but a story that sparks his interest (how else would you explain Johnny Mnemonic?). So whereas Neeson et al go through the motions double-tapping Albanians muttering "is this what the kids want, ok then", Reeves is invested. And it shows. He often picks projects which have a risky dose of weird in them, and he's done it again here. The result is a good, dirty little film which hits almost all the B-movie beats you want in a story about a retired assassin forced to saddle up to avenge the death of his dog, but is also unexpectedly elevated by the reveal that this isn't happening in the world we know.
The dog really is cute. You don't want it to die. Keanu seems a lot happier after his wife's death because of it. You understand why he takes up arms when a punk (Reek from Game of Tits & Dragons) shoots it in the head. I'm a cat person, and even I was upset on Keanu's behalf.
With a grizzled aspect and a cold manner which suits him, because Keanu emoting is a bit gruesome (exhibit #1, Bram Stoker's Dracula), he kills acres of goons to get to his man.
One of the best things about the film is the spin it puts on the action movie convention of baddies underestimating the hero, Usually they think he's laughable, and don't even really worry about him when they discover that he won a silver star in 'Nam, is an expert in black ops and only took the job as the nuclear submarine's cleaner because he killed so many of the world's terrorists he made himself redundant. Not so in Wick, where the big bad immediately shits his pants when he hears whose dog his son popped. Over a punchy meeting with his entitled spawn, he explains that Wick once murdered three hard cases with a pencil. Even though they far outnumber Wick, the army of bad guys reckon he has a pretty good chance of killing them all, whatever they do. Almost all his enemies approach him with grim-faced expectations of death, which in every case he satisfies (the ones who are cocky or dismissive of his reputation also die).
Oddities like this make John Wick stand out. Oddest of all is its setting. Wick takes place in an underworld where everyone hangs out at a hotel for villains, where the currency is special gold coins. It's weird, this break with reality, and it could have flopped. But instead it injects a welcome novelty into the familiar, heartwarming trope of revenge killing.
It helps hugely that every supporting role is cast with a top-drawer character actor - Willem Dafoe, Lovejoy, Reek, Lester Freamon from The Wire, but Keanu's also solid. I say he's embarrassing when he expresses himself, but there's one bit where he shouts which is quite powerful, though even then I can hear him bursting to say "dude" at the end of the sentence. He just has that kind of voice.
And so he can add John Wick to his list of Good Movies Starring Me, under Point Break, Speed, Bill & Ted, The Matrix, Devil's Advocate and, yes, Constantine. Dracula is also very good, though that's in spite of Reeves, whose dudeiness nearly derails it completely.
Wick is a much better fit.
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