A Week After Its Release, <em>John Wick</em> Already Seems Like a Cult Classic

I saw John Wick late on the night it came out, October 24, in a halfway-full Brooklyn theater. I'd call myself a committed Keanu Reeves fan, but I had only heard of this movie days before, when posters for it started popping up on the subway. So all I really knew was that this was a hard-boiled action movie starring Keanu. Sign me up.

The film starts slowly and cleanly—Keanu is in mourning for a departed wife, who left him a dog to remember her by. A Russian mob boss's upstart son beats him up, steals his car, and kills the dog.’s Sophie Gilbert , this amounts to the death of Wick's hopefulness, and unleashes his retired persona as terrifying mob enforcer. Alfie Allen must die, to be sure. And so must everyone trying to protect him.