When you think of the action genre, you’re probably going to think about the action icons that have defined the decades: Sean Connery as James Bond, Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, Bruce Willis as John McClain, Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator and Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt.
Action movies are nothing without their stars. If you have a weak action star, you have a weak action movie. You could have the best action hero ever put to script, but if he isn’t portrayed by the right actor, no one will care. In order to make an action icon, you need to have a great character concept and a great action star.
Going into the 2010s, there were definitely plenty of actors playing in action movies, but many times they were good action stars playing bad action characters, or vice versa. In a post-Jason Bourne world, the action genre was filled with cheap, forgettable Liam Neeson pictures that all had the same plot, and the best action movies were either from countries outside of America (The Raid) or sequels to franchises that were already decades old (Mad Max: Fury Road, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol).
For four years, there was no new icon to define what action was in the 2010s. Then, John Wick happened.
It was a movie no one expected anything from. It was helmed by a first-time, no-name director who previously had only done stunt work. It wasn’t based on a pre-existing franchise, and it starred the washed up action star Keanu Reeves, whose glory days had long passed him since The Matrix and its sequels. Despite all of this being true, John Wick released in 2014 to box office success and blew everyone away as the best original action movie in decades.
It had everything you wanted in an action movie: well-shot and amazingly choreographed action, memorable and quotable dialogue, a great villain, a great cast and a fantastic action hero. John Wick would have been considered a good action movie if that’s all it had going for it, but it also introduced the audience to the underground world of assassins that the John Wick movies take place in.
Around every corner, there was a character that had a backstory and a history with Mr. Wick. There were sacred buildings with unspoken rules, and there were methods and systems of currency foreign to our own. The best part of it all was that there was no scene in John Wick where everything about the world was explained; you just watched the character’s mysterious actions, and it made you pine to know more. The world of John Wick is why it has turned into a successful franchise with two sequels and a Starz TV show in the works.
The movie and its directors are now ubiquitous with the action genre. Every action movie with good fight choreography will be (and is currently) compared to John Wick. Any time the director, Chad Stahelski, or the producer, David Leitch, gets involved with a project, the movie’s reputation gets a boost as people anticipate the fantastic action scenes that await them.
However, what made the movie a pop-culture icon is its titular hero, John Wick. Wick is what you want from an action hero. He’s the best at what he does. If you end up on the wrong end of his gun barrel, you’ll get a bullet between the eyes, and he never misses. He’s strong and intimidating because, like all legendary action icons, even when faced with mortal danger and high stakes, he’s still able to come out on top.
The movie revels in his god-like reputation, but isn’t afraid to expose him as a mortal man. In one scene, he’s being revered by his colleagues as the best in the business, and in the next, he’s getting stabbed in the chest and thrown down a staircase during a battle. By the end of John Wick: Chapter 2, it’s amazing he’s alive and in one piece, but defying the odds is what the character does best.
The movie loves making him improvise when the odds turn against him. Give him one gun and five shots, and he’ll clear an entire room. If he runs out of ammo, he’ll just throw his gun at your face so he can swipe a pencil off a table and stab it in your eye. When he’s mortally wounded and physically weak, he reaches deep within himself for the extra gust of strength needed to win.
But plenty of action heroes defy impossible odds and carry a big reputation. What made John Wick work as a character was his motivation.
The John Wick trilogy, and his concurrent bloody rampage, is kicked off by a singular event: the murder of John Wick’s dog. It sounds silly, even unrealistic, but the movie makes it work because of who the character is. Despite being the best assassin in the world, there was nothing Wick wanted more than to leave his life of crime to settle down with the woman he loved. After finally achieving his dream, his wife dies of illness. To console him, his wife has a puppy dog given to him posthumously. The dog was a reminder of her, it was something to love in place of her and it was the motivation Wick needed to keep living the life he built with his wife.
When Wick’s dog is killed, he not only loses a canine friend, he loses everything he had. Despite his efforts to find fulfillment in life, he is haunted and cursed by his former life of crime. Even when he gets out fair and square, his old line of work finds a way to destroy everything in his life.
That’s why Wick’s quest for revenge is so emotionally effective. It’s not about a man avenging his dog, it’s about a man trying desperately to redeem himself from a lifetime of sins the only way he knows how: by killing the lowlifes who denied him the chance to start anew.
John Wick is a great action hero on paper, but what sold everyone on the character wasn’t the writing — it was the actor portraying the writing. There is no one better fit for the character of John Wick than Keanu Reeves. Like the character he plays, in 2014 Reeves was retired in a way. Out of the cultural limelight for nearly a decade, Kenau Reeves was in no noteworthy action movies from 2003-2013, aside from a few box office bombs. His reputation was stuck between being the dweeb from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the bad actor who got lucky by landing a role in The Matrix. Like Wick, Reeves was a veteran of action. He cut his teeth with movies like Point Break and Speed. And in 2014, he decided to come back with a vengeance.
What makes an action star iconic is the role that defines them. Schwarzenegger will always be the Terminator, and Willis will always be McClain. With John Wick, Reeves has found a role that truly defines him. After watching John Wick, it’s hard to look at him without thinking about the character he plays in it. The character fit Reeves like a tailored suit, and Reeves fit the character like a glove.
The character helped Reeves’ reputation, but Reeves helped the character by bringing all of his natural talents to the table. The gunplay, swordplay, hand-to-hand-combat, insane card riving, and soon, in John Wick: Chapter 3, the horse riding and motorcycle driving, is all believable when you watch it on screen because Reeves can really do all of those things, and he does all of them in spades throughout the trilogy. John Wick is the perfect Keanu Reeves showcase because there’s no wires, no super-powers and no special effects. It’s just pure physical stunt work by someone who, even in his 50s, is clearly one of the best and most talented action stars in the business.
Keanu Reeves, the character of John Wick and quality action writing came together to create the definitive action icon of the 2010s. John Wick rescued the action genre from a terrible future where all it had to offer was endless sequels to The Terminator and more tired Liam Neeson movies. It gave action movie fans something great to look back at when the 2010s were all said and done. You can bet anything that I’m going to give myself a graduation present by being at a theater on the opening night of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and if you want to see the best action movie that will come out this year, I would recommend that you do the same.
