If you have been living under a rock for the past five years and have no idea who John Wick is, let me bring you up to speed. John Wick was a former assassin, one of the world’s best, and had slipped into retirement after finding love. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, there wasn’t a fairy tale ending for him as his wife had passed away from cancer, and it was just a downhill journey from there. John received a puppy as a parting gift from his wife after her death, and although he was depressed, Wick was content on living a life of solitude with his puppy, until death.
That all changed when his puppy was killed by a spoiled son of a Russian smuggler who wanted John Wick’s 1969 Ford Mustang. Triggered, John Wick sought reparations in the form of an eye-for-an-eye. And each decision from there on out, pulled him back into his old profession, and into the dark world of the assassins.
DIRECTION
The entire John Wick trilogy was directed by Chad Stahelski, who was one of the top stunt coordinators and stuntmen in Hollywood. He is most notably known for working with Keanu Reeves during the Matrix and all of its sequels. Stahelski’s stunt background in martial arts shines in all of the John Wick Movies. Wick’s style of close combat utilizing “gun-fu”, acrobats, and more guns, reminds me of Steven Seagal during his younger years – and maybe a notch higher.
There’s a lot of story in John Wick, but most of it is sitting on the sidelines waiting for it to be explained. There’s also a lot of questions in John Wick. I’m not sure if Stahelski intentionally left these questions unanswered, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to give any negative marks for not satisfying my personal thirst, because the darn movie was entertaining as hell.
GRADE: A
CHARACTER ENNEAGRAM PSYCHOLOGICAL BREAKDOWNS
Don’t think for a second that John Wick was not a character driven movie – because it was. The difference was that in John Wick, characters were sure of themselves and not trying to find their identity. They were unapologetically confident in who they were and what they believed in. They were just compromised between codes, morals, and loyalties, and that’s what made this story interesting – other than the great action sequences.
JOHN WICK: TYPE EIGHT “Challenger”
When you think of a Type Eight personality, you should immediately think of Gordon Ramsey, the hot-headed in your face restauranteur. Type Eights are your Type A personalities that will invade your personal space, to force you in a certain direction. And there’s a reason why they’re like this. They are natural born leaders and have the uncanny ability to whip people into shape, literally – through fear and intimidation. The world needs Type Eight personalities to set us straight. Often, inspirational talks or meditating won’t change us for the better. We need to be whipped, our asses kicked, because we are all naturally stubborn. This is why Type Eights like Gordon Ramsey can turn around a failing business in 24-hours. His in your face, no-nonsense bullshit approach, is what failing entrepreneurs need.
Common rules of decency are only guidelines meant to be stretched to a “Challenger” personality. And if Type Eights need to break laws or trample over the feelings of others to benefit their own personal agendas, or for a greater cause, they will do so with no remorse or hesitation.
Other fictional Type Eights would be Thor, Peter Venkman, Captain Marvel, John Mclane, Wolverine, Deadpool, and almost all of Samuel Jackson’s characters.
Wick was your typical Type Eight. There was a code to follow, but he didn’t really care. All of what unfolded was because his dog was killed and he couldn’t let it go, and he sought justice at all cost, despite the rules.
By the way, I have yet to write an Enneagram breakdown on the Type Eight Personality. But once I get it done, I’ll be sure to link it here.
WINSTON: TYPE ONE “Reformer”
Type Ones are your law and order personalities. When there are rules to follow, they usually are very loyal, but not blindly convicted. They will always choose good over evil, the light over dark, and the narrow and winding path over the straight and easy. When they are healthy, they are naturally calm in their demeanor, using logic to reason their position, rather than force like a Type Eight.
In the movies, you usually will have a Type One personality who pulls back Type Eights from going too far, when it comes to justice. And that’s what Winson was to John Wick.
In the fictional world, Type Ones are Captain America, Spider-Man, and even Batman (although Batman is an unhealthy Type One)
In John Wick 3, Winston was loyal to the assassin’s code and the High Table, but he was not a blind loyalist. He wanted peace, treasured John Wicks life over the code, and did everything in his power to save his friend, even if it meant jeopardizing his life. Winston sees flaws in the High Table and wants to take it down – good over evil.
To learn more about Type Ones click here:
SOFIA: Type Eight “Challenger” Average to Unhealthy.
Sofia was pretty much your female version of John Wick, just a much unhealthier version. When Type Eight’s are unhealthy, they become very selfish, self-serving. When they are healthy, they care more about others and set some boundaries to what laws they will stretch or break.
In all honesty, there’s too little to go on to really make a solid judgment call on what type of personality Sofia is. But for the few scenes that she makes an appearance, she seems to be the one personality that treats John Wick like trash, even though Wick saved her daughter.
ZERO AND HIS ASSASSINS: Type Six “Loyalist”
This personality finds its strength in groups. They may be loyal to a church, a gang, a political party; or in the case of John Wick, the Assassin’s Code and orders issued by the High Table.
The bald guy in the middle, by the way, is Mark Dacascos, who is from Hawaii and an incredible martial artist. You may recognize him from Iron Chef or Dancing with the Stars. When he had hair, he was in the movie “Only the Strong.” Anyway, in case you missed it, his character in John Wick is called Zero and he and his crew are much more talented assassins than John Wick.
They are also huge fans of John Wick’s work, so big that they seem to intentionally hold themselves back from killing him when they had the upper hand.
They didn’t want to kill John.
The problem was that their loyalty to the High Table and the code came first. If I’m not mistaken, they were not motivated by money to kill John Wick, but just by an order. This is somewhat typical of an unhealthy Type Six personality, one who would destroy relationships based upon their loyalties to a supreme leader. And, for the record, in real life, this happens quite often with religions when members are excommunicated. Their lifelong friends, even family members, will cut ties with that excommunicated member, if they are ordered to do so. In some religions, loyalty to a church is more important than their loyalty to their children.
Unfortunately, I haven’t written much about the Type Six Personality yet in my curriculum. I’m only finishing up the Type Five Personality. When I get to it, I’ll post the link here.
SCRIPT ANALYSIS
John Wick seems to be modeled after the relationship I have with our HOA (Home Owners Association). Like the Assassin’s code, our HOA has rules upon guidelines that contradict each other. And all of that crap ends up turning good neighbors against each other because codes and regulations get in the way of common sense and reasonable conversation.
John Wick’s actions set off an earthquake of personal agendas, that forced him to break the rules, which pushed his friends into compromising positions. John Wick 3 was just the result of a righteous decision having consequences.
Character-wise, the script was very strong – no problem there.
Where the script failed was explaining the world that John Wick existed in. We are three movies in and we don’t know really how John Wick came to be a great assassin, how the High Table was established, and how he met his wife. There’s a lot of questions that could have been answered given that we’re three movies in.
The world that is created for John Wick is an artistic fantasy land. Assassin’s have their own gold currency, use Commador 64 computers and old telephone switchboards to communicate. I didn’t see many smartphones, just flip phones. John Wick’s home agency was some type of Russian ballet hybrid assassin shop. And then when it comes to the man who sits above the High Table, he was somewhat supernatural, yet not. This is all fine and dandy but, a screenwriter needs to explain why things are done or it’s just lazy writing.
The genius in fiction comes with the explanation of why things are done the way they are. For example, why can Superman fly on earth? Because of his powers garnered by the yellow sun.
I can’t give this script a high mark because of this shortcoming.
GRADE: C
OVERALL
There are glaring problems with the script and Halle Berry is just irritating to me. I honestly don’t care for the over-the-top rude persona that she took on ever since she starred in Catwoman. What happened to the vulnerable Halle Berry that showed up in Boomerang? In any case, despite all of this, I loved the movie. The action scenes were incredible and I was entertained throughout, and that’s all that really matters.
GRADE: A
Steve Young
