Things are not looking good for John Wick. "You who enter, let all hope go," is the sentence from Dante's Inferno, which even those who do not know what it is, quoted right at the beginning of the fourth part of the action series about the contract killer. But did it ever look good for Wick? In the three previous films, Russian mafia sons had killed his little dog, the last gift from his late wife Helen. Wick had wanted to retire after Helen's death, but now takes revenge that is so thorough that it in turn leads to further acts of revenge by various mafia families and killer organizations. The plot sounds simpler than the grossest Bond movie. In the fourth chapter of the "John Wick" series, however, director Chad Stahelski and screenwriters Shay Hatten and Michael Finch further elaborate the cinematic cosmos that frame this plot, and its density and abundance no longer lag behind the Bond world, with its own aesthetics, its own mechanics, its own rules.

Maria Wiesner

Coordinator "Style".

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That every action has consequences is the simplest. The fact that you have to stick to rules at all, because otherwise you are no different from animals, is the second most important one, which is often quoted in the film by Ian McShane, who plays the distinguished owner of the New York Hotel Continental, which grants refuge and special services to contract killers.

The whole parallel world is organized according to the model of medieval guild structures: There is a Council of Elders and a High Chamber, which ensures that the power structures remain in balance, and can pronounce the punishment of violations of the rules of the killer guild. John Wick has already had to accept such a punishment in the second part: He is outlawed. The news of this spreads in underground networks, fed into their channels via an army of communication ladies who still work with physical maps, plug-in telephone lines and computers with DOS system – which in the first part still seemed like a nostalgic steampunk borrowing, but in the current part is interpreted as a clever independence from everyday work with crashing Microsoft software programs. When the job is a matter of life and death, you don't have time to wait for the update. The glossy backdrops contribute many such backgrounds and profoundness and thus to the charm of the series.

A man from the seventies

The former hunter in a bulletproof black suit, now hunted by legions, is once again played by Keanu Reeves, who sets a counter-image to the currently common hero types: neither muscle-bound like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson or other superheroes nor witty-virile like Jason Statham. His hero remains old-fashioned monosyllabic, only sometimes very dry humor shines through in a remark. Reeves is thus based on the male image of the action heroes from the seventies: From Clint Eastwood he has borrowed the gentle silence, from Steve McQueen the coolness not to give in to the emotions that boil beneath the surface, even in the greatest hustle and bustle, and from Charles Bronson the willingness to do ugly things that cannot be avoided.