John Wick 2

After watching the first John Wick I now also watched the second movie, aka chapter 2. I watched the first one already quite a while ago. Then my son said he was going to see chapter 3 so I figured it was time to do some catching up and watch chapter 2. After having ‘retired’ again at the end of chapter 1 John is forced into action again by a former maffia partner Santino who orders him to assassinate his sister Gianna so he can take her place as one of the 12 leaders of crime. Wick reluctantly honours the blood oath he made after his house was destroyed. After having killed Gianna, John is double crossed by Santino who tries to have him killed. As this fails he opens a contract to kill John to ‘avenge’ his sister. Being hunted by both Gianna’s body guard and other assassins. The movie has 2 very different styles. In the first part we follow John on his mission to assassinate Gianna and there is a bit of plotting, suspense and hinting at the double cross about to happen. In the second part John is on the run with a lot of chases and violent fights and shooting going on. At the end John has his revenge on Santino but only by violating one of the golden rules of the high table. As a result he is declared excommunicado and is free game with a new contract on his head. Here the movie ends and it is clear that the story will continue in chapter 3. The movie is quite enjoyable but compared to chapter 1 it lacks a bit of emotion. The main problem in my opinion is that the bad guys are not as convincing as in chapter 1 and it is simply a bloody but emotionless matter of survival for John.