My John Wick Problem  Oris Aigbokhaevbolo

I admit that I have always had a problem with John Wick—as character and as film. The idea of a single man killing everybody else has always felt not quite right. Of course, neither the film nor the man is alone in this lethal enterprise, but Keanu Reeves (who has now played the character in four films) is the current holder of a championship belt owned by such onscreen laconic luminaires as Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Seagal and so on. 

Part of the annoying rules of this world is that there are no rules, except rules that help the main character stay alive to kill and kill again in the most creative ways. In a previous instalment of the franchise, we learn of a rule governing people like John Wick: they are not supposed to kill anybody else at the Continental, a hotel that serves as a consecrated ground for John Wick and co. This rule is so sacrosanct that breaking it leads to immediate execution. Well, that is until Mr Wick breaks the rule. He escapes because the hotel’s owner allows him to. Not long after, he is shot somewhere around his torso, the force of which pushes him off a building. He defies the rules of physics and biology because not only does he disappear from the ground upon which he should have landed, he does show up somewhere else. There are other examples of this rule breaking that Mr Wick comes to be quite like the Nigerian big man politician. Like exemplars of that group, he is above the law of his own world. 

Those who have followed the story since the first part understand that it was the killing of a dog given to Wick by his late wife that brought on the killing spree. Since then, his motivations have been less connected to uxoriousness. In the new film, it is freedom from the world he belonged to he seeks. As expected, he will kill to get it. This should give Social Justice Warriors a cause because why is one white man killing people of all races? In part 4, Arabs, blacks, Asians all fall by Mr Wick’s tireless hand. (White men are also killed but that’s not likely to trouble SJWs.)

Because it is no longer possible to see films of this sort without thinking like an SJW, I recalled a trope about Hollywood that has received scholarly treatment: “the black dude dies first”. In JW4, excepting one minor guy in the desert and other faceless folks in the same desert, it is a black guy who does die first.  

Of course, now that Hollywood has been shamed for its treatment of non-white people and characters, you don’t have to strain to see racial compensations in major films. In John Wick 4, an Asian man, an Asian woman, and a black American man with semi-substantial roles. When I saw Donnie Yen in the film’s trailer pre-release, I wondered if they’ll make his character like Mark Dacascos’s in John Wick 3. But I also thought Yen might escape that fate because he is a lot more famous in Asian countries. 

Why is this important? Well, because China now has a massive say in how Hollywood plays the box office game, especially for films seeking juicy overseas revenue. Asian stars with currency must be treated nicely nowadays. Viewers will no longer see the token Asian character killed off dismissively. In this film, besides Yen, who is Hong Kongese, there is also the Japanese action-man Hiroyuki Sanada. This allows a certain type of viewer guess who will receive the three main fates possibly for non-white actors (or characters) with some clout: die gracefully, be killed off with some dignity (probably by someone other than the white hero), survive. Unsurprisingly, who gets what would be decided by their status and reputation in Asia. We can only hope that Africa gets into a similar position. But that will not happen without Hollywood considering how much money it can get from our continent.

This means that Keanu Reeves, as his killing machine character, has to kill with more political strategy in 2023 than he did in Part 1, back in 2014. Many faceless people will die, of course. Those ones have no real race and can be killed with impunity. Those with visible faces must be killed with care, sometimes literally. 

And this is the main issue with films like John Wick. The suspense isn’t inside the film; it is barely connected to the plot. The real suspense is outside of the frame because the film itself is predictable: the hero will definitely survive. Or he’ll receive a transcendental death after killing all his 397,621 enemies. The only question with a bit uncertainty is: How will the film handle the social justice and economic politics of the real world in 2023? 

Why is this the pertinent question? Well, that’s because even though the story is fictional, in Hollywood, money, especially Chinese money, is incredibly real.

• Aigbokhaevbolo writes from Lagos