*. The DVD box tells us it’s “from the writer of John Wick.” That would be Derek Kolstad, who wrote all three John Wick movies. Did you know that? I didn’t. I also didn’t know why I’d care that a movie came from the writer of John Wick. I liked the John Wick movies well enough, but not because of anything in the scripts. Basically they’re expensive, state-of-the-art action fare, with the main driver of the franchise being the blank charisma of star Keanu Reeves. If you asked me to explain the plot of any of them to you I couldn’t, or remember more than a couple of lines of dialogue (both from Chapter 2, which I thought the best).
*. The link to John Wick though is a good heads-up for what’s on tap here. Lots of bone-jarring action of the hand-to-hand and weaponized variety. The director Ilya Naishuller I knew from the frantic Hardcore Henry, which I registered at the time as very much a work in the Wickian mode. So writer and director were a good match. Now for a star . . .
*. Bob Odenkirk? Well, at one point Liam Neeson was an unlikely action star too. Somewhat surprisingly Odenkirk doesn’t play the part for laughs at all, even of the dry style favoured by laconic men of action. He wanted to play the part earnestly and not ironic. This helps the movie sell its main twist, that the suburban Caspar Milquetoast with a semi-dad bod that is Hutch Mansell is actually a God of War. People flee from his tattoo. You don’t mess with (former) FBI accountants. Or “auditors.”
*. Silly as it sounds, Odenkirk actually makes it believable. He’s great. As an accountant though, why is it too much for Hutch to put his garbage bins out on time? A montage of his daily routine shows him always missing pick-up. I’ve never understood people who can’t manage things like this. Don’t they ever learn? Do they just forget? If he likes to sleep in, why not put it out the night before?
*. The humour then comes by way of this basic incongruity, which is compounded when we meet Hutch’s hard-boiled dad (Christopher Lloyd), who is just aching to get out of the retirement home so he can kick some ass. This is taking the geezer-action motif of movies like The Expendables and R.E.D. to its extreme, but it’s all good fun.
*. In a way, I wish they hadn’t gone so far. Nobody climaxes with the reveal of the fight on the city bus between Hutch and the gang of hoods. It’s violent and innovative, even avoiding any scoring throughout the best of it so as not to take away from the clanging and smacking of the sound effects. Compared to this, the big final-act gunfight, which Naishuller wanted to be more “poppy” and “colourful,” goes on far too long and just consists of the usual splattering of an army of mooks by Hutch, his pops, and his brother RZA. The way the chief bad guy, a Russian mobster named Yulian, is dispatched is satisfactory, but that’s the only good part.
*. The usual notes are struck. There are lots of incongruous music-video scenes, climaxing with a car chase to Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker.” Hutch sets a bunch of booby-traps for the final fight which we get to see all go off. Hell, they even borrowed some gold bars from the Wickiverse and gave Colin Salmon Ian McShane’s role. Meanwhile the plot plays out predictably but it still works, which is to its credit.
*. Odenkirk says something interesting on the commentary track when he remarks that Hutch is crossing his fingers hoping that Yulian will come out of the night club and chase after him. I thought he was hoping Yulian would walk away. I still think it may be ambiguous. I like it when a commentary suggests alternatives though.
*. Shot in Winnipeg so it was hellishly cold but you get some Canadian star power with an appearance by Michael Ironside. A personal favourite of mine and I didn’t even recognize him! Well, we all get older.
*. I enjoyed it. They weren’t re-inventing the genre here, but most of the action is pretty good, especially when it goes the John Wick route of playing off the use of makeshift weapons in different settings. Odenkirk is excellent, though nobody else plays up to his level. At the very least it can function as a kind of lower-rent placeholder until the next Wick movie comes out.
*. Will we be seeing more of Hutchie too? Things certainly seem to be set up for a run of sequels (Kolstad has even hinted at the possibility of a crossover with the Wick “universe”), and there’s even a bit of a teaser that plays in the middle of the end credits. Odenkirk expresses some concern over the tone a sequel might take given the direction this film goes in at the end. Obviously it would be a very different movie because they can’t spend all that time with misdirection in the set-up. But aside from that, they should be on autopilot now.
Alex on Film 
Big Yep from me, saw this a couple of weeks ago, an excellent Saturday night popcorn movie and Odenkirk was fab!
Yeah, he really sells it. The ending was a little silly but I think I could watch another. Don’t know where they can really go with it though because they can only play the trick of his transformation from suburban dad to hitman once.
True, but I hope they do anyway!
Why couldn’t the full movie be dedicated to his bin routine? I’m tired of film-makers panning coyly away when bins have to be attended to. It’s part of our lives, you more than most Alex, and I demand to see today’s film-makers take up the gauntet of depicting actual bin work.
I endorse these sentiments, but in this case they might have at least made a more responsible statement about how easy it is to put your bins out on time. There’s really no excuse whatsoever for missing pick-up,
I thoroughly enjoyed the first John Wick. But I didn’t care for the sequels and I don’t care for this trend of making movies in the same vein. and then to hear there might be sequels? aye yai yi….
I am glad somebody is keeping tabs on the state of bins in movies. This is an important part of life and it shouldn’t be glossed over or ignored in movies. I fully support a Bin Live Matter movement. I’ll even volunteer to be the treasurer…
I actually thought the second John Wick was the best. The first seemed a little too first-person shooter for me.
If I don’t stay on top of the bin issue, then who will? Treasurer is open now so you can step right in. We keep all our money in a specially designated money bin . . .
And that aspect of Wick 1 is what I liked. I felt like it was clean and narrowly focused on the revenge side of the story. The “story” in the later movies ruined things for me 🙂
What color is our Treasury Bin? I’ll need to know so I know which bin to handcuff myself too.
It’s green, naturally, but in order to set it apart from the organic waste it has a big dollar sign painted on it.
Why naturally? We have green bins, blue bins, pink bins and I think I’ve even seen some other colors as well. Obviously our bin diversity down here in the states is in a much more advanced state than in Canada.
But don’t you worry, some day you’ll have Bin Equality just like us. I’m sure Prz Joey B would be glad to tell you how to run things to achieve that 😉
Green for money! Unfortunately, the dollar sign will necessarily make you a target for drugged-up ruffians, cartels, and other bad guys so we’ll give you a gun bin as well to defend yourself. Maybe also an armoured bin you can jump inside and fire out of.
What is a pink bin for? Dead bodies? We have green, blue, and grey.
Good call on the weapons and armored bins. Only the best for the Treasurer after all!
I believe the pink is about breast cancer awareness? I think the other colors I saw were from smaller companies that were trying to set themselves apart visually from the competitors.
On a side note, did you really like Wick2 better?
Yep. I thought it developed the original in some interesting ways with its offbeat mythology. The first just seemed like a videogame. The third I thought was just a repeat of the second.
Good review, I might check this movie out after all. I’m a fan of Bob Odenkirk, so it was odd that his presence in this film was what put me off. I just don’t see him as an action star, but I suppose I should at least give him a chance to change my mind.
He works really well here, and carries the movie. He’s obviously playing against type, but given the premise it works.