John Wick 4 Review: Chapter 4 as a Symphony of Shootouts in Three Acts

John Wick 4 review: the three-act shootout

John Wick: Chapter 4 goes all in on operatic excess. It keeps expanding the secret-society worldbuilding that made the series popular, and it also reaches for the plain action purity of the first film, which the review still ranks as the best of the series. In this John Wick 4 review, the balance is not perfect, but it is deliberate, and it is carried by a script that has more shape than most sequels bother with.

The shape is the headline of any John Wick 4 review. The film is built like a symphony in three acts, with a humming emotional through-line underneath. That is the review's own image, and it fits: each act is a long set piece made of several sequences stitched together, with quieter movements between them.

After two films of angering the High Table, John Wick (Keanu Reeves) may finally have a route to freedom. All he has to do is kill the Marquis Vincent de Gramont, played by Bill Skarsgard in a fine French-villain mode, while navigating the rules and customs that the assassins live by. The review admitted to enjoying the labyrinth less as it became more explicit, since one of the first film's pleasures was how it only hinted at that underworld.

Who wrote it and what it is about

Shay Hatten and Michael Finch wrote the script, the first of the series without Derek Kolstad as screenwriter. Hatten worked on the third film and on the spin-off Ballerina, and Finch is best known for Predators. The review had worried about the change and found the worry unnecessary.

Hatten carried over the character focus of the third film. John gets moments to consider what his purpose will be after he is free, and to reckon with how many people have died because they helped him survive his war against the High Table. The film also reminds viewers that although the saga began with the death of a dog, it is his wife he has been mourning all along, which keeps the film grounded in feeling even when the lore turns ever more arcane.

Two rivals worth rooting for

The film's biggest innovation is the way it treats its antagonists. Caine, played by Donnie Yen, is a blind assassin and an old friend of John's who has to kill him to protect his daughter. The review loved his playfulness, which sets him apart from the fan-boy assassin Mark Dacascos played in the previous film, and noted that Yen is at his best with a blade or a blunt object, feeling his way through each environment with inventive methods of finding his targets.

Then there is Mr. Nobody, played by Shamier Anderson, a tracker who wants only to be paid and is accompanied by an emotional support dog. The review had no good reason to root for him and rooted for him anyway, partly because this remains a pro-dog franchise. Because he is less versed in the lore than anyone else, he is also less bound by its rules, which makes him the wild card of the movie.

Two more performances stand out in the Osaka sequence. Hiroyuki Sanada, as Shimazu, and pop star Rina Sawayama, as Akira, light up the screen so vibrantly that the sequence plays like a complete film in itself. The review praised Sawayama, in what it described as her film debut, for handling the choreography, which proved Stahelski's casting instinct right.

The craft: neon, long takes and legible fights

The action is the reason the film exists, and the review is happiest when it is describing it. The gaps between set pieces are not empty either, since Stahelski keeps tension high with small devices: in an early scene where characters discuss what will happen when an hourglass runs out, every shot has the hourglass in frame. Fights break out in a club full of dancers and in a street full of traffic, and John fends off a horde of assassins while trying to dodge cars, to a Gesaffelstein track that had the reviewer bouncing in the seat. Elsewhere John drives in circles around opponents from a car with no doors, shooting as he goes.

Dan Laustsen's cinematography captures the chaos in wide shots washed in neon and rain, which makes other action films look gray. Many scenes happen at night or in darkened rooms and everything can still be seen. Editor Nathan Orloff cuts combat only when a particular move needs the closer view, and a glorious overhead tracking shot briefly turns the film into a top-down video game; the review called it perhaps the coolest thing it had ever seen. Tyler Bates and Joel J. Richard supply a score that reflects the region of each sequence, with some playful music from inside the scenes themselves.

Not everything works. Plot and character work add up to maybe an hour of the 169 minutes, which leaves close to two hours of mayhem, and the secret-assassin world still asks viewers to accept that its business is conducted in public while the public barely reacts. The review also noted a few stilted line readings, though it argued that they make John more endearingly beleaguered.

John Wick: Chapter 4 at a glance

Source: Wikipedia's article on the film.

John Wick 4 review verdict: how the film landed

The review closes with a defense of length. Stahelski opens with a reference to Lawrence of Arabia, which drew a laugh, and the review concluded that it had indeed watched an action epic. The film is certainly no brief encounter, yet its length is never felt. Reeves supplies the beating heart of the film, with an assist from Ian McShane's warmth as Winston, and the conclusion left the reviewer extremely satisfied.

The wider response matched. Rotten Tomatoes reports 94 percent positive reviews from 374 critics, with an average rating of 8.1 out of 10, and Metacritic gives the film 78 out of 100 from 58 critics. It earned $447.3 million worldwide against a reported $100 million budget, making it the highest-grossing film of the franchise. Lance Reddick, who appears in the film, died in March 2023, before its release.

The franchise has continued since. Ballerina, directed by Len Wiseman and starring Ana de Armas, was released on June 6, 2025, and is set between Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. It took $140.2 million worldwide and holds 75 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 305 reviews. At CinemaCon on April 1, 2025, Lionsgate chair Adam Fogelson announced that a fifth John Wick film is in development with Stahelski and Reeves.

Anyone choosing between the films after reading this John Wick 4 review should treat Chapter 4 as the one that pushes everything to the limit. It is the longest, the most elaborate and the most emotional, and it is the right place to start only for viewers who already trust the series. For newcomers, the first film is still the purest.

Sources

• John Wick: Chapter 4, Wikipedia — credits, release dates, critic scores, box office and franchise status
• Ballerina (2025 film), Wikipedia — release date, timeline placement and box office