John Wick [3]: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) [Blu-ray]
Action | Crime | Thriller
Tagline: If you want peace, prepare for war
John Wick is on the run for two reasons… he’s being hunted for a global $14 million dollar open contract on his life, and for breaking a central rule: taking a life on Continental Hotel grounds. The victim was a member of the High Table who ordered the
open contract. John should have already been executed, except the Continental’s manager, Winston, has given him a one-hour grace period before he’s “Excommunicado” – membership revoked, banned from all services and cut off from other members. John uses
the service industry to stay alive as he fights and kills his way out of New York City.
Storyline: In this third installment of the adrenaline-fueled action franchise, skilled assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) returns with a $14 million price tag on his head and an army of bounty-hunting killers on his trail. After
killing a member of the shadowy international assassin's guild, the High Table, John Wick is excommunicado, but the world's most ruthless hit men and women await his every turn.
Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, August 24, 2019 Well, let's just get this out of the way right off the bat: there is no doubt going to be a John Wick: Chapter 4, at least as evidenced by the closing moments
of this film where (minor spoiler alert, but only if you think it's a spoiler to reveal that the film's titular character and at least one other major character make it through the maelstrom to the end of the film) John (Keanu Reeves) and the so-called
Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore (to purloin a quote from another famous film). And as odd as it may sound, there is in fact a kind of Network-esque madness running rampant through this so-called
"third chapter" of the John Wick franchise (and is there any doubt that this is indeed a franchise by this point?). There's even a network of sorts running rampant through this film, namely The High Table, the super secret and super
sinister organization that attempts to maintain order, if not always honor, among thieves. The fact that John Wick: Chapter 2 ended with John committing a major murderous faux pas means that much of this film is spent with John
trying desperately to outrun the tentacles of an aggregation set on snuffing him out. Sound familiar?
John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum basically starts out at full bore gonzo and then repeatedly ups the ante with a succession of the kind of over top action scenes that have become one of this series' calling cards. John is on the run, and
seemingly everyone everywhere knows about it in a rain drenched, neon lit Manhattan that seems awfully like a vision ripped directly from Blade Runner. As is documented in a series of vignettes at the weirdly retro headquarters of The Table in New
York, John is officially "excommunicado" and is "off limits" to any other Table acolytes. The fact that there's also a 14 million dollar bounty on John's head, which means that many of those aforementioned knowledgeable types about John's travails are on
the hunt for him, leads to several spectacular fight sequences.
There's a wider fight that John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum is setting up, though, one hinted at by that high-falutin' final word in this installment's title, one which may sound familiar to those with a penchant for famous historical
quotes like si vis pacem, para bellum, namely "if you seek peace, prepare for war." Now the ironic thing is virtually no one in this enterprise is seeking peace, but several people, including John, the Bowery King, and Winston (Ian
McShane), as well as this film's sole attempt to let a female in on some of the action, a former cohort of John's named Sofia (Halle Berry), are all preparing for war in their own ways — with The High Table. It takes a while to get there, but
that is obviously going to be a major focus of whatever the next "chapter" in John Wick's saga turns out to be.
As several of the cast and crew get into repeatedly in some of the supplements included on this release, there was a conscious attempt to give at least a little background on John in this film, and as such the story does offer some passing hints of a
tidbit or two about his past, one of which which brings him back "home" to an imperious ballet instructor simply known as the Director (Anjelica Huston). This particular ballet school (which will no doubt remind some of Suspiria) also offers
courses in martial arts, which is evidently where John learned at least some of his "particular set of skills", but it's also part of a community of what might have been called "gypsies" back in the day, and they have some extremely peculiar
traditions, one of which provides one of this film's more "wince- able", squirm worthy moments.
The imperious nature of The High Table is actually personified in this installment in the form of one Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon), who starts making the rounds to the likes of Winston, the Bowery King and even the Director to let them know they're all
in "arrears" with regard to their required "fealty" to the organization. There's also a completely bizarre plot development which finds John wandering through the desert in search of his spirit animal, or at least the so-called Elder (Saïd Taghmaoui), a
rather youthful looking guy who offers to help John work out his "issues" with The High Table, though, again, after another wince-able moment that might have been just as at home, if not more so, in 47 Ronin. Speaking of ronin, the Adjudicator also
recruits a sushi chef assassin (there must be a lot of those, don't you think?) named Zero (Mark Dacascos), who is out to prove he's Wick's equal and perhaps superior. You can probably guess how that one goes. It's all relentlessly silly most of
the time, interspersed with some absolutely graphic violence, but, much like the first two John Wick entries, there is such a nonstop array of action and such stylistic flair repeatedly on display that the kind of patently insane undertow of the
film is never really a problem.
John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum gives passing lip service to establishing, or at least hinting at, John's background, but it's really not all that necessary. There are probably going to be more questions than answers on the part of some fans
after watching this enterprise in terms of what exactly The High Table is and what its methods hope to achieve, but this third chapter does an effective job of setting the (high?) table for a showdown in what I have to assume is an already in
development fourth foray. Technical merits are first rate, and with an understanding that this is after all a "John Wick movie" (so you know what you're in for), John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum comes Recommended.
[[CSW] -3.8- I agree with this reviewer: Just saw John Wick 3 and I must say that Keanu Reeves is great and Halle berry has some great scenes with 2 well-trained exciting dogs. Fight fatigue definitely sets in after an hour and a half so the
film definitely should have been cut by a half hour. Angelica Huston and the ballet school setting are totally wasted, and although Asia Kate Dillon plays a big role, it is such a cryptic mysterious figure and played so emotion-free, that who really
cares? My review is kept at 3 stars for Keanu, Ian MacShane, the dog scenes, and a great horseback scene. I am not waiting for John Wick 4.
However given time I think I will get over the fight fatigue in which case I will probably add this to my movie collection. The fight scenes were some of the best choreographed that I have seen.
[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box
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