John Wick rated R for violence, language, and drug use

I was initially curious to see this film due to the "teasing" nature of the trailer and frankly the picture looked promising.  My enthusiasm wavered a bit after I learned that the gangsters kill John Wick's dog.  I was reassured by my friends that the killing of the dog happens off screen so it shouldn't have been a problem.  Unfortunately my friends obviously didn't remember the film well enough or simply considered the way the killing of the dog was filmed as "off-screen".

So the plot of John Wick is that John Wick (played so excellently by Keanu Reeves) is grieving after his wife's death and is attempting to begin healing with an adorable beagle puppy named Daisy. Daisy happens to be a gift from his deceased wife.  Mrs. Wick was sick and had time to arrange for the puppy to be delivered around the time that she died.

 While John is at a gas station with his puppy a Russian gangster named Iosef (played brilliantly by Alfie Allen) spots John's car and asks John  to name a price.  John refuses.  Iosef spots John's sweet puppy and pets the dog before insulting John in Russian.  John surprises the Iosef by replying in Russian to his insult before driving off.  That night John is beat up by Iosef and his friends and Daisy is killed.  When John regains consciousness he determines to find Iosef and kill him.

As it happens, Iosef is the son of a powerful Russian mobster named Viggo (played excellently by Michael Nyqvist).  At one time, John used to work for Viggo so Viggo is aware of his "abilities".  Turns out that John Wick is a badass that no one is keen to mess with.  Even Viggo has a healthy enough respect of John to try to reason with him before John fully begins his pursuit of Iosef.  And so we follow along as John does his best to avenge the death of his precious puppy.

The movie was very good although given the death of the puppy I don't think that I want to own it at present.  Maybe some day in the future but not any time soon.  (If you are wondering why the fictional death of a puppy in a movie bothers me so much it is simply because, for the most part, I am sensitive to "pet" deaths/animal deaths).

On a much more positive note, Keanu Reeves was amazing to watch in this film.  His movements during the fight scene were like watching a "deadly ballet".  He was so graceful.  The stunt fighters were also so beautifully graceful it was just glorious to watch.  They had to have spent hours training and training and rehearsing over and over again to make it all come together so seamlessly and effortlessly.

The story in this movie was great.  The acting was superb, much better than you might expect considering it is an action movie.  There were elements that one comes across in action pictures of course but there was a very nice subtle depth added.  There were no stupid one liners which, while appreciated in action movies is also nice to see omitted.