John Wick Chapter 3 “Yeah Consequences”

“You are bound and I am Owed” growls John Wick in a scene opposite the lavishly ornate “Director” (a wonderfully overstated Anjelica Huston) in my favorite entry into the John Wick lore Chapter 3: Parabellum. In his book “The Christian Religion: An Inquiry” humanist philosopher Robert Ingersoll wrote “There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences”. The aspects I love so much in this franchise; are the way it discusses consequences and attaches them to most important aspects of our humanity. It's not just that he's saying the Director is bound to him, it's the “why”. Chapter 3 is the culmination of these powers in collaboration with a punctuation on the religious imagery and allegory that had been set up in the previous installments. Ingersoll wrote his words ultimately in repudiation of the moral high ground of the church and John Wick even with all it's Catholic musings and paraphernalia is the story of a man in repudiation of his church. The church in this case being “The High Table” and it's congregations of faithful cutthroats. Ingersoll in discourse with those who sought to make christianity the chief source of human morality argued at length against the belief that without the church man would simply not be able to function ethically, and he goes on through a list of folks who suggested and practiced the same exact ethical and moral ideals as the bible long before it existed as a counter. In John Wick the high table too likes to suggest that all of its rules and rituals are all “that keep us from living with the animals”. Yet time and time again in Chapter 3, it is implied if not explicitly said that our human bonds are inherent and stronger than any fealty to a power hungry enterprise meant to create a host of servants to enlarge its influence. Just before Wick let's those words “You are bound and I am owed” radiate from his mouth Anjelica Huston says “You forget that the Ruska Roma (the familial crime syndicate she and John belong to ) is bound by the high table and the high table sits above all!”. This after she announced that that “ticket” he is holding is worth nothing. She's telling him and us about the commandments, reiterating the possibility of damnation for breaking them, ( it won't be the last time) and yet when John explains before all of this he is family, and she is actually bound to that, she helps him anyway knowing full well the consequences. Damnation is what they fear not because of what it means to them, but what it could do to them, a hold religion and the church have over many of its practitioners, but when up against the things that actually mean something to them like John or ethical compassion, the people in Chapter 3 often fold. John hurtles towards damnation despite the fact that he fears it because his very nature is in direct contradiction with the essence of the church's /High Tables appeals to blind loyalty. The rest of what we see unfold are the consequences and sometimes they are good and sometimes bad, but they are always consequences of this fracture. Chapter 3 is also where “Choices” becomes a very pronounced theme. It's always been there, but in this movie you start to see a difference between cognitive decision making and involuntary reactions. Any version of the John Wick backstory doesn't give much room to believe John had much choice in where he ended up. His one choice was leaving it behind to be with his wife and this is reinforced explicitly by exposition, scenes, and by Keanu Reeves performance in 3. Parabellum marks a turn in the focus of the Wick lore. It is no longer about revenge or more accurately justice. John Wick has by the end of Chapter 2 gotten back what he wanted and paid all debtors while collecting his debts. Chapter 3 is about what happened when 2 ended…Choice (voluntary) and consequences. Up until that point it was only consequences as John Wicks actions weren't so much choices as pure consequences. You invaded my home and killed my dog, I am the consequence. You take my car I am the consequence. As a consequence of chapter one he is seen and drawn back into chapter 2, and then becomes the consequences of the decision to draw him out and double cross him. It’s the difference between a force of nature and the personification of that force. In Parabellum John Wick is actively making the choice to shoot a man on consecrated grounds and that the closing of the loop of justice is more important to him than the High Table's willingness to harbor and aid evil people. He does not arrive at this suddenly and Keanu doesn't play it as wild eyed blind fury. He makes it look controlled, thought out, and angry.

Wick brings damnation on himself by way of this decision to “finish it” which is a continuation of the theme that the high table is not so much governed by code as by power. Wanting to be be finished with the High Table is an affront to them, and truly, so is choice. All that John was put through and made to do just to get out of the entire business is a tell, the response by the High Table once he's back in is a tell, but 3 is a confirmation further reinforced by how the table reacts to the others making choices that go against their wishes. Like the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) refusing to abdicate his throne (Seven cuts ) and Ian McShane's Manager refusing to give up his position and die (deconsecrating the hotel so they could be killed ). The High Table is not about giving choices, it's about giving out commands and commandments and demanding blind fealty from it's congregations. Anyone who has lived in service to it, is constantly made aware of this and of their lack of choices all while they pretend to give them a choice. Reeves performance is key to understanding this. Reeves first “choice” to kill Santino D'Antonio was played with a ferocity and anger that indicated that of course on some level he knew what he was doing but was so strongly motivated by his very humane passion (I.E. he saw red) that for a moment the red prevents him from seeing the full bore of consequences. This is also a crisis of his faith in the institution, but by the finale of 3 he has seen the light again and comes back, ready once again to serve. He states to Winston “Rules and Consequences” in reference to how they have arrived 180 degrees at him being there to kill Winston. Winston replies “No I've made my CHOICE it's up to you to make yours” John replies “What choice?”. Reeves plays this as if John still doesn't really understand the concept, in considering what we had seen from these criminal oligarchs in the previous chapters and John's backstory it is likely he didn't really understand what Winston is talking about bringing up choice. This is what Keanu Reeves does best. What has underscored some of his best roles and work in his career is a sense of innocence, a person still capable of being surprised in a world full of people who “know”. Hell in “Speed” he quite literally is asking questions for most of the movie! Wick is not an exception, a great percentage of this series is someone asking Wick “what he thought would happen?” because John seems to move not understanding fully consequences or even his choices..until 3. What Winston says to him next is where you see that Chapter 3 is being affirmed as maybe the first time in John's life that he's making the conscious decision to do something that is purely for himself and beneficial to himself. In Ingersoll's book he quotes Confucius to counter the idea that our ethics extend from Christianity, but the quote works here as well as "For benefits return benefits; for injuries return justice without any admixture of revenge"?. John Wick is no longer seen as a tool for revenge he is a rendering of justice and that exists because of a choice that Keanu wears perfectly.

Keanu's John Wick is not the only character who is extremely instructional as a character to the existence of these themes but also exceptionally functional as an expression of them. Halle Berry’s “Sophia” is my favorite character outside of John in the series for this very reason. To understand the power of Sophia and John's frenemy relationship (which is really just friends) you have to pay attention what happens before John even meets her face to face. It is in the very fact that John is allowed to meet her face to face that one can see a further expression of the power of their bond as a challenge to the ubiquitous power of the high table. John is excommunicado with a price on his head and nearly anyone who has helped him is punished rather severely, yet in the alley when two men try to kill John they are stopped by her concierge who then kills another man for trying, stating that the manager (Sophia) has given John amnesty. There is nothing in script given, nothing implied that Sophia has to do this, in fact quite the opposite and yet she does it anyway. Everything that happens once they come face to face including her shooting him in a bulletproof coat is her being angry at the fact that she couldn't help but give this to him because she loves John. Up to this point we had only seen people that really respect John. John Leguizamo's Aurelio deeply respects John. Ian McShanes Winston deeply respects John, The Bowery King deeply respects John, but Sophia loves him , not romantic love, but love born of someone really sticking their neck out for you in your time of need. Sophia's daughter is safe because of John we are told, and Berry for her part portrays it wonderfully. There is a very well cooked defeat in her body language that follows Wick saying “This is your blood, this is your bond, when you needed me I was there” That body language is also representative of yet another choice by Sophia to deny what she should do “shoot him in the head right now” for the table because of what's in her heart. A love she betrays in the explanation of why she has to keep her daughter a secret and what she does to keep her longing at bay, which is deny it. She denies John for the very same reason she says she doesn't want to find her child. She is trying to “Kill that love” to keep them alive. But that is also why she says she is “fucked” because in John she sees herself and she can't help herself and so yet again there she is helping John for what is now a third time for a marker that by rule of law is forfeit by the table, but very much alive through their bond. Again Berry crystallizes what is in word with a vividly restrained body language and vocality that indicates years of fear, memory, and hurt all coming to fruition. There is no other actor in this series that gives this emotionally explicit a performance and it undergirds what Halle Berry herself says about what the draw to John Wick is…it's emotionality. Her refrain of John Wick's statement “Consequences” is all about emotionality steeped in regret, shame, and yes Love all of which anyone who spends anytime in church is well acquainted with, and all of which would then be further elaborated upon in the next Chapter of Wick's journey.

Chapter 4 expounds upon these themes and the story is essentially the high table sparing no expense to try and stop the spreading of an idea that has been formulated by John's desire to be out from under it and then consequently his willingness to make the choice to go against the high tables wishes. All of it connected to the idea that there is inate value in things like peace, in things like love, and things like the social bonds that tie us, that do not require social institutions to tell us what they are. Winston does this because of what he sees happen to his friend Charon (The dearly departed Lance Reddick). Hiroyuki Sanada's “Shimizu” and the tension at the core of his problem is yet another reiteration of this new theme the seeds of which were sewn in the first Wick. That leaves Chapter 3 as the transition from a series about the man rules that govern the world in the high table, to the natural laws that govern us as people. Cain will do the same in Chapter Four, but Parabellum is my favorite because it most adeptly and poignantly illustrates the heart of this series through a refreshing way to interpret consequences. The ending in 3 in which Winston betrays Wick just to earn a place back in the light of what we see happen in Chapter 4 is one of the more realistic and intelligent narrative choices I've seen in a franchise such as this. A statement as to Stahelski and the writers fealty to the unfolding and strange nature of consequences as it involves humans. John Wick: Parabellum is the cumulative peak of the journey through Dante's inferno in reverse through John's devotion and dedication to the memory of his wife in the first to his dedication to his friends and now their dedication to either he himself or their respect for him. It is because of what happens in Chapter 3, including the consequences of the Tables actions that many of our favorite players in this underworld in 4 are in outright war with the High Table. In that way Chapter 3 is the beginning of a revelation and revolution of the heart not only in the series but in action movies. There are other joys where Parabellum stands out; like the fact that it is by far the best acted of the series, or its eye popping visuals and the strategic audacity of its sequences which are arguably the most “how did they do that” of the series and definitely the most consistent in that regard. From the knife fight in the antique store to the horse stables. From Sophia and her dogs to motorcycle ninjas on a bridge to the grand finale at he “Continental”, Stahelski and co. refuse to give an inch to latency in its structure, narrative, performances or choreography. Where others see narrative drop off, I see narrative bonds and that is where I fell in love with 3. A return to a love for breaking the rules that really don't mean much to reiterate the importance of the ones that do, and in so doing this franchise (pick your own favorite it doesn't really matter) has helped restore our faith in the genre.