JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM (US - 2019) Directed by Chad Stahelski. Written by Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Chris Collins and Mark Abrams. Cast: Keanu Reeves, Halle Barry, Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, Anjelica Huston, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Tobias Segal, Said Taghmaoui, Jerome Flynn, Jason Mantzoukas, Cecep Arif Rahman, Yayan Ruhian, Margaret Daly, Randall Duk Kim, Robin Lord Taylor, Boban Marjinovic, Susan Blommaert, Unity Phelan, Roger Yuan. (R, 131 mins) An unexpected sleeper hit in theaters in 2014 after being given an 11th hour reprieve from VOD excommunicado, JOHN WICK provided Keanu Reeves with another iconic character that's single-handedly carried him through an otherwise rough career patch: a retired hit man who walked away from his old life to be with the woman he loved, unleashed as vengeance personified after the son of his former employer steals his car and kills his puppy Daisy, the final gift given to him by his wife before she succumbed to cancer. 2017's JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 was even better--a gonzo, comic-book-inspired actiongasm that cranked up the stakes, the inventive world-building, and ended with its hero embarking on a run for his life with seemingly the entire world in pursuit. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM (that title's a bit of a mouthful) opens just seconds after the ending of CHAPTER 2 as Wick, branded "excommunicado" by the High Table of the organization after killing double-crossing Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) on the consecrated grounds of the NYC branch of the hotel-for-assassins The Continental, is given a one-hour head start by Continental manager Winston (Ian McShane) before a $14 million mark is opened on Wick and offered to every professional assassin in the world.
Unable to get out of the city and dodging bullets, knives, and various other lethal weapons everywhere he goes, Wick calls in a favor and seeks safe passage from The Director (Anjelica Huston), a Russian ballet instructor and enigmatic figure from his past. Meanwhile, the High Table sends The Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon), an ice-cold problem-solver whose job is to enforce appropriate punishment to any of those who aided Wick in his escape, including Winston and The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), both of whom are given seven days to get their affairs in order before they're relieved of their duties. The Director gets Wick on a boat to Morocco, where he visits the Casablanca branch of the Continental, run by former colleague Sofia (Halle Berry). This leads to a meeting in the desert with a High Table elder (Said Taghmaoui), who offers Wick his freedom if he goes back to NYC and eliminates Winston, who's been deemed unreliable after failing to properly handle the D'Antonio debacle. Waiting in NYC is Zero (Mark Dacascos sighting!), a sushi chef and ambitious assassin ordered by The Adjudicator to kill Wick.
With Reeves and director Chad Stahelski returning, there's certainly a nice, lived-in feeling of comfort with the increasingly complex world of JOHN WICK. But like almost all franchises on its third go-around, CHAPTER 3 does start feeling like it's spinning its wheels at times. Derek Kolstad, the screenwriter of the first two films, is also back, but there's three additional credited writers, a telling indicator of how cluttered and structurally chaotic this often seems. After an electrifying opening half hour, the repetition starts creeping in, and there's only so many ways Wick can blast a bad guy in the head at point blank range before it starts to become a blur (Stahelski seems particularly indebted to Gareth Evans' THE RAID 2, right down to the presence of Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayan Ruhian as two of Zero's chief flunkies). But just because it isn't as fresh and inspired as its predecessors doesn't mean there isn't a lot to enjoy: the knife fight is terrific; a long gun battle with Wick, Sofia and her two loyal, ass-kicking, crotch-biting dogs vs. the army of Casablanca crime boss Berrada (Jerome Flynn) could almost be its own stand-alone short film; an amusing shout-out to Andrei Tarkovsky; an eye-piercing that's right up there with Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE; Lance Reddick as the NYC Continental's unflappable concierge getting to blast shotguns as he helps Wick take on some of Zero's guys; and Dacascos has a lot of fun as Zero, who's assigned to kill Wick but can't stop being a gushing fanboy whenever he's in his presence (and he gets not one, but two opportunities to remind Wick "You see? We're the same!"). But after a pair of creative, inventive action sagas, CHAPTER 3 is still enjoyable but the fatigue is there. The stylish elements and the colorful look just feel recycled from CHAPTER 2, the whole Casablanca detour doesn't serve much of a narrative purpose other than bloating the running time (and Berry's role is little more than an extended cameo), and the increasingly epic nature of the action sequences necessitate using more noticeable and less convincing CGI as a crutch as the JOHN WICK franchise starts resorting to FAST & FURIOUS-esque silliness. The door is left open for an inevitable CHAPTER 4, so I'm predicting here and now that John Wick will be in space or at the very least battling a cyborg by CHAPTER 6.
JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 (US/China - 2017) Directed by Chad Stahelski. Written by Derek Kolstad. Cast: Keanu Reeves, Common, Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Franco Nero, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, Lance Reddick, Bridget Moynahan, Peter Stormare, Claudia Gerini, Peter Serafinowicz, Thomas Sadoski, Tobias Segal, Wass Stevens, Luca Mosca, Chukwudi Iwuji, Simone Spinazze. (R, 122 mins) A sleeper hit in 2014, JOHN WICK was held in such ambivalent regard by Lionsgate subsidiary Summit that it almost went straight to VOD until someone decided to arrange some test screenings and the audience response was through the roof. An electrifying, non-stop action thriller about a retired assassin--an unstoppable killing machine known to those in his profession as "The Boogeyman" and "Baba Yaga"-- on a mission of vengeance when the son of a Russian crime boss steals his car and kills his dog, JOHN WICK was filled with memorable shootouts, quotable dialogue ("Oh..."), a sly sense of humor, and an almost graphic novel-like sense of imaginative world building. In this world, the assassins have accoutrements like their own gold coin currency and they stay at the Continental, a safe sanctuary where business is conducted and violence forbidden. Friends become foes and back again, and it's understood that it's "just business." But things turned personal for John Wick (Keanu Reeves): on the day after the funeral of his cancer-stricken wife (Bridget Moynahan), his car is stolen and his dog killed by Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen), the sniveling brat son of Wick's former boss, Russian crime lord Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist). Wick declares war on Tarasov and single-handedly wipes out his entire organization over the course of the film, all while dodging an endless parade of fellow assassins after the bounty placed on his head by Viggo. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 picks up shortly after where the first film left off, with Viggo's vengeful brother Abram (Peter Stormare) waiting in his secured office as his men try--and fail--to stop Wick, who's arrived at the Tarasov warehouse to reclaim his stolen car. Wick confronts Abram and spares his life, offering him a drink as a mutually agreed peace offering.
Wick's return to retirement is short-lived however, as Italian mobster Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) presents a marker--a blood oath among assassins--demanding Wick pay a debt. D'Antonio helped Wick with the final task for Viggo Tarasov that got him his freedom, and it was under the condition that he stay retired. Since he emerged from civilian life to wipe out Viggo's organization, D'Antonio declares the marker reactivated. His demand is that Wick whack his Rome-based sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini), who represents the Camorra on the international council of assassins, a seat D'Antonio believes he should've inherited from his late father. Wick refuses to acknowledge the marker, prompting D'Antonio to blow up his house. Under advice from Continental manager Winston (Ian McShane), Wick concedes he has no choice but to fulfill the marker if he wants any chance of returning to retirement. He travels to Italy, where he's greeted by Julius (Franco Nero), the manager of the Continental's Rome branch. Once Gianna is eliminated, Wick is double-crossed by D'Antonio, who puts out a $7 million contract on his life to create the appearance that he must avenge his sister's murder (really, Wick should've seen that coming). Once he's back in NYC, the chase is on as Wick spends the entire second half of the movie evading every covert assassin in the city--which is everyone from homeless guys to food truck vendors to street musicians--looking to grab $7 million to take out their most lethal colleague on the planet.
With a body count somewhere between "astronomical" and "fucking ridiculous," JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 exists in a patently unreal world where no cops of any kind are visible. Returning director Chad Stahelski (going solo this time, without the original's uncredited co-director David Leitch, his name left off the film by a DGA snafu) and screenwriter Derek Kolstad go for the same approach as THE RAID 2: it's the same story, just on a significantly larger and much more grandiosely ambitious scale. The set pieces are done with even more intricate, ballet-like precision, whether it's a high-tech hall of mirrors or Gianna's top security detail Cassian (Common) and Wick having a silencer shootout in the middle of a crowded subway station where no one even hears the guns going off around them. Stahelski goes for a much more stylized look this time out, with some tracking shots that serve as some of the best Kubrick homages this side of Nicolas Winding Refn's ONLY GOD FORGIVES. And some garish neon color schemes coupled with the staging of the action end up concocting an unholy visual fusion of Dario Argento, Brian De Palma, and John Woo. There's amusingly bizarre touches like the call center where assassins order contracts being filled with typewriters and analog equipment and looking a lot like a 1940s switchboard exchange straight out of HIS GIRL FRIDAY. This is absolutely exhilarating and gloriously bonkers filmmaking that rewards fans of the first film with numerous callbacks (there's another ominous "Oh..." from someone and we finally get to see Wick kill multiple guys with a pencil, a story that everyone who hears the name "John Wick" seems to reference), but takes everything to a higher level of inspiration and execution. Almost everyone in the cast gets a moment to shine, whether it's Nero's Julius breaking up a THEY LIVE-level brawl between Wick and Cassian, an unusually gregarious Laurence Fishburne (MATRIX reunion!) as the Bowery King, solid turns by returning JOHN WICK vets McShane and Lance Reddick as the Continental concierge, and a silent, scene-stealing performance by Ruby Rose as Ares, a mute, androgynous D'Antonio assassin who gives an almost Oscar-caliber flutter of an eye-wink to reassure her boss that she can handle Wick (spoiler: she can't). An improvement upon an already exemplary predecessor, JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 takes its place beside the elite likes of THE RAID 2 and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD among the decade's greatest achievements in action cinema. It's that good.
THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY (US/UK - 2016) Directed by Louis Leterrier. Written by Sacha Baron Cohen, Phil Johnston and Peter Baynham. Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Strong, Penelope Cruz, Isla Fisher, Rebel Wilson, Gabourey Sidibe, Ian McShane, Barkhad Abdi, Scott Adkins, Tamsin Egerton, Sam Hazeldine, Nick Boraine, Annabelle Wallis, Ricky Tomlinson, David Harewood, Yusuf Hafri. (R, 83 mins) With his mockumentaries BORAT (2006) and BRUNO (2009), Sacha Baron Cohen displayed a razor sharp wit in his holding up a funhouse mirror to America seen through the eyes of outsiders. He continued in a similar vein with the narrative comedy THE DICTATOR (2012). But with THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY, his latest scripting and starring effort, Baron Cohen pretty much abandons any kind of social/political commentary and goes straight for the grossout/raunch crowd, displaying a positively Sandlerian level of crude laziness with gags that play like he stole them from the dumpster outside the Farrelly Brothers' office. Baron Cohen is too smart to confuse any of this for bold transgression. The sole saving grace is the seething slow burn of veteran character actor Mark Strong, who manages to maintain his dignity to a point--that point being when Baron Cohen's script has him drenched in elephant cum. Twice. In what must set a new standard in damning with faint praise, the best thing one can say about THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY is that it's marginally better than DIRTY GRANDPA.
28 years after being left an orphan and separated from his beloved little brother, Nobby (Baron Cohen) is a soccer-obsessed father of 11 (with names like Skeletor, Tsunami, and Gangnam Style) and grandfather of one (Django Unchained), with his nympho wife Dawn (Rebel Wilson) and living in the depressing industrial five-nuclear-reactor town of Grimsby, the "twin city to Chernobyl." He gets word that his little brother will be at a London reception (yes, the establishing shot of London, with the London Eye ferris wheel and the Thames is accompanied by the caption "London, England") to honor young, wheelchair-bound AIDS activist Schlomo Khashidi (Yusuf Hafri), hosted by actress and humanitarian Rhonda George (Penelope Cruz). The long-lost little brother turns out to be Sebastian Graves (Strong), a lethal superspy working for a covert division of MI-6, there to take out international assassin Pavel Lukashenko (Scott Adkins). Nobby surprises Sebastian, who compromises the shot and ends up shooting young Schlomo, whose AIDS-tainted blood lands in the open-sore-filled mouth of celebrity attendee Daniel Radcliffe (played by an impersonator), while Lukashenko's remote controlled gun takes out the head of the World Health Organization. With the mayhem pinned on him and MI-6 deeming him a traitor, Sebastian is forced to go on the run with the hapless Nobby and follow the trail all the way to South Africa and ultimately to the FIFA finals in Chile to find Lukashenko and clear his name.
Along the way, it's endless toilet humor--literally in some cases. Nobby is forced to pretend to be Sebastian after the secret agent accidentally injects himself with heroin Nobby bought from a Cape Town dealer (Barkhad Abdi, obviously unable to parlay that CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Oscar nod into anything resembling a career bump). Nobby is sent to seduce the wife (Annabelle Wallis) of an arms dealer, but confuses her with hotel maid Banu (PRECIOUS' Gabourey Sidibe, in a humiliating role), who's wearing a similar dress, which leads to an extended shot of Baron Cohen with his face buried between Sidibe's ass cheeks, with an insert shot of what's supposed to be the Oscar-nominated actress' extremely unkempt crotch area. Sebastian is shot in the scrotum with a poisoned dart, forcing Nobby to suck the poison out of his brother's ballsack, Baron Cohen wrapping his mouth around Strong's stunt sack as Sebastian teabags Nobby ("You came on my face!" Nobby yells, with Sebastian replying "It was a tiny amount of pre-ejaculate at most. Grow up!"). Horny Dawn goes commando and pulls a BASIC INSTINCT on Nobby, opening her thighs and queefing in his face ("That wasn't me bum!" she says), and then ripping a loud fart ("That was me bum!"). At a health spa, Nobby falls face first into some wax and then lands on a guy's crotch, emerging with a curly goatee except for where the guy's dick entered his mouth. A weakened, AIDS-stricken "Daniel Radcliffe" is later shot at the FIFA finals, with his tainted blood going into the mouth of attendee Donald Trump. But the biggest set piece, and the one where Baron Cohen's career may very well end, has Nobby and Sebastian fleeing psychotic MI-6 mad dog Chilcott (Sam Hazeldine) and hiding inside the spacious confines of a female elephant's vagina. Just as Chilcott and his men leave, Nobby starts crawling out only to be stopped by an aroused male elephant who mounts the female, with Nobby and Sebastian sharing the vagina with a giant elephant cock. "You stroke him and I'll cradle the balls!" Nobby advises, as Sebastian is soon drenched in gallons of elephant jizz. When they try to exit, they're again thwarted by a second male elephant about to have his way with the female, followed by a line of elephants forming for what Nobby deems "an elephant bukkake fuck party." And then Sebastian is covered in elephant cum again, while Nobby is anally violated by another male elephant.
It's worth mentioning that Baron Cohen and co-writer Peter Baynham got Oscar nominations for writing BORAT, and that their other co-writer here (Phil Johnston), co-scripted WRECK-IT-RALPH and the current hit ZOOTOPIA. The director is former Luc Besson protege Louis Leterrier (TRANSPORTER 2, THE INCREDIBLE HULK), and the second-unit action duties were handled by JOHN WICK director Chad Stahelski. There is some genuine talent here and the end result is so utterly embarrassing that as the credits rolled, the exiting audience members (both of us) didn't even want to make eye contact. It's lazy, it's beyond juvenile, and it's simply not funny, whether it's the recurrent anal fixation, the pointless AIDS jokes, and consistently unfunny grossout humor at the expense of plus-sized women. "Shock" doesn't necessarily equal "funny," and Baron Cohen is a smart enough writer and performer to know the difference (the only sign of vintage Baron Cohen that shows is when Nobby discovers the rush of firing a weapon, concluding "I can see why people love guns! It completely distances you from the guilt of your actions!"). THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY is a draggy slog even at just 83 minutes, and the fact that there are seven credited editors is indicative of compromised product with which no one really knew what to do (half the shots and lines in the trailer aren't even in the finished movie, and the set-up is so rushed and truncated that it's never really explained how Nobby finds out Sebastian will be in London). Baron Cohen is all about poking people with sticks to get a response, but what exactly was the endgame here? Whatever went wrong, let's just hope that he got it out of his system and can go back to being the bold provocateur he's capable of being, because THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY would be damn near unwatchable were it not for the heroic efforts of Mark Strong.
