I am going to admit that I had known about the John Wick movies, but haven’t seen them until Thanksgiving day, 2019. Mostly because they aren’t on any of the streaming platforms I subscribe to. But I was visiting my brother in San Diego for the holiday, and he has all three.

I had heard that it was a lot like one of my favorite movies of all time, The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves, and an insane amount of action. I was not disappointed.

The beginning was a bit confusing, a montage of Wick, as his loving wife passes away from some debilitating disease. As a final act in her life (death?) she gifts him a beagle mix puppy named daisy.

While buying dog supplies, he stops for gasoline in his cherry ’69 Mustang fastback, and runs across a Russian mobster’s son who wants to buy his car. After being told it wasn’t for sale, the son’s associate apologizes to Wick, and all is well.

… or is it?

That night, the kid and his crew break into Wick’s house to steal the car, and in the act beat the ever loving shit out of Wick, and kill his new pupy, his last connection to his dead wife.

Turns out that Wick was a super bad ass assassin sort, part of an underground (or pretty out in the open) economy that trades reputation coins for actions, and Wick was legendary until he retired to settle down.

The next two hours is an adrenaline fueled mayhem fest where Wick pretty much destroys the Russian mobster’s empire.

The often repeated line: All this for a puppy?

The end of the movie, Wick, in dire need of medical attention, breaks into a veterinary surgery, and fixes himself up There he sees a gorgeous pittie that has a label on his cage door that he is to be destroyed, so Wick liberates him.

God damn, the whole movie is about Wick seeking vengeance for his dog being killed by a piece of human garbage. Hell yeah, I can totally understand.

Chapter 2 and three are more of the same.

Thoroughly enjoyable, will watch again and again.