DONE TO DEATH

‘John Wick: Chapter 4’, a massacre marathon from start to finish, commits so nobly to self-seriousness that it borders on camp, says Clarisse Loughrey; plus Florence Pugh’s new flick

- Clarisse Loughrey

The similarities between John Wick and Jesus Christ likely start and finish with silky locks and an uncanny ability to cheat death.

That’s never stopped filmmaker Chad Stahelski from shovelling religious imagery into this franchise, though. It’s always as if the Rapture itself is right around the corner. Back, alive, after an unfortunate tumble off a New York City rooftop at the end of 2019’s Chapter 3, Keanu Reeves’s indomitable assassin now stalks the aisles of saintly cathedrals. He crosses pistols with a blood brother named Caine (Donnie Yen), whose name echoes the biblical kinsman tarred by murder. And, most arrestingly, he opens the film hurling several ferocious punches, which hit their target with the sonorous quality of church bells summoning the faithful.

Even at its nearly three-hour runtime, John Wick: Chapter 4 commits so nobly to its self-seriousness that it almost borders into camp. And yet, the franchise possesses both the self-confidence and the ingenuity to earn its boldness – even at one point replicating the 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia and its famous cut from a blown-out match to a shimmering expanse of desert.

The film’s narrative is minimal: Wick’s survival means the multimillion dollar contract out on him, present since