Texture

John Wick looks like a standard revenge thriller but feels like grief channeled into precision. This is a man processing loss through the only language he knows—violence that's almost ritualistic in its exactness.

Clean, surgical, oddly meditative. The action sequences have a ballet-like quality that makes the brutality feel less chaotic and more cathartic. There's something deeply satisfying about watching someone work through trauma with absolute competence, even when that work involves extensive bloodshed.

The underlying sadness never lifts. Every perfectly executed headshot and broken bone carries the weight of a man who's lost the only thing that made him want to be human. The violence is extreme but strangely emotionally distant—it's therapy, not rage.

The violence is frequent and graphic but stylized in a way that feels more like dance than brutality. Those sensitive to animal harm should know the inciting incident involves John's dog.