For me John Wick Chapter 2 is a shameful example of Hollywood gun pornography

John Wick Chapter 2 has been quite positive. And I can understand why. Audiences get to pick and choose, but we critics, the brave soldiers of cinema’s trenches hurling ourselves atop grenades to save you from a bad movie, suffer through more junk than you can possibly imagine, especially in the early months of the year. Director Chad Stahelski, cinematographer Dan Lausten, production designer Kevin Kavanaugh, stunt coordinator JJ Perry and their teams, it must be made abundantly clear, are wizards working at the top of their craft, and the leap in quality from typical action dreck to this is undeniable.

I Think eventually we’ll need to ask where does this end? Just because we can rattle our brains with bone-snapping, aorta-snipping, cranium-splashing violence, does that mean we have to? At what point does this hyperactive, blood-soaked, corpse-strewn video game aesthetic, however laudatory its choreography, cease being harmless entertainment and become psychologically invasive?

I may sound like someone terrified of witchcraft lurking in heavy metal lyrics, but common sense (and my own viewing habits) have me convinced that desensitization to violence is a real thing. Years ago, watching a beat-down or shoot-out would send me into a white-knuckle sweat. Now I don’t stop munching my popcorn. To put it bluntly, it took film-making this good to realize just how sick we’ve all become.

John Wick Chapter 2, a string of elaborate bullet ballets with only trace elements of a plot, is hardcore gun pornography, pure and simple. And when the imagery faded (along with the hoots ‘n’ hollers of the audience) I felt sunk in a crater of guilt, choking on a miasma of shame.

This specific film may seem like an unfair place to shout “enough!” but its clear indication of intelligence is, in a weird way, doubly irksome. This is a movie that wants to have its shotgun blast to the head and eat it, too. In addition to a Seijun Suzuki hat-tip, John Wick: Chapter 2 is loaded with vague hints of some kind of meaning in its lean script.

In the first John Wick (which, yes, I awarded four stars back in 2014, back before I became so easily shellshocked, I guess) the big surprise was learning, as the picture progressed, that a larger, surreal underground of killers lived among us. The sequel leans into this to the point of absurdity; by the end it implies that nearly everyone in New York City is somehow tied into the criminal netherworld and its labyrinthine codes of conduct.

The world of John Wick includes a chain of fancy hotels serving as “neutral ground” for killers who are currently “working”, eg figuring out how to murder someone and, probably, their dozens of bodyguards and henchmen. Peter Serafinowicz plays the Roman “sommelier” who actual deals in carbines, not cabernets.

A lustily shot sequence teases out one weapon after another and, to one who has never held a firearm and has no intention of doing so, each make and model just sounds like chrome noise. Until our hero was handed an enormous rifle in the AR family. Ah, that’s one I’ve heard of. I recognize it as the gun of choice in Newtown and Aurora and San Bernardino. (The Pulse dance club in Orlando fell to an MCX, the Pepsi to the AR-15’s Coke.)

So, it’s supposed to be funny when Keanu Reeves’ John Wick and his nemesis (played by Common) have to temporarily call a truce when their brutal brawl crashes into the lobby of the Continental, but I dunno, that little dose of intentional comedy wasn’t enough to wash the bloody taste out of my mouth.

The “we’re just joshing around” angle, in addition to making very little sense, just feels like a paint job, as does the lame final act twist of having a showdown at an art museum. Oh, it absolutely looks breathtaking (and shatters The Lady From Shanghai’s broken glass count), but the mere presence of a recorded voice saying things about “deeper reflections into the nature of self” doesn’t actually impart any intellectual heft. In fact, some might say it makes you realize the waste of effort in this whole enterprise.

Stylized violence in movies isn’t going away any time soon. Nor is it always uncalled for. The last movie I remember with so many gunshots to the head was Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall. But violent movies come into my life so regularly; I must have seen so many others brimming with vicious head kills since then. Yet Downfall is the one that keeps coming up because it was a rich story with urgent themes, historical resonance and dramatic tension. These high body-count brutality fests, even the cleverly made ones (like Hardcore Henry or The Raid 2) are ephemeral, and their mindlessness doesn’t stick, no matter how many minds are shown sticking to the wall.

I don’t think it’s overly prudish to wonder just where the line of decency is as audience bloodlust continues to get chummed. Eventually, the moviegoer staggering out of a violent screening looking for headache tablets will be you.

NB: I appreciate there not being a paywall: it is more democratic for the media to be available for all and not a commodity to be purchased by a few. I’m happy to make a contribution so others with less means still have access to information.
Thomasine F-R.

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