Keanu Reeves | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

While watching the new movie “Good Fortune”, which has a lot to do with people who live at the edge of homelessness, I was thinking that the writer/director of this film Aziz Ansari, knows about this life from his years as a struggling Indian stand-up comedian. Aziz also plays the lead role in this story, Arj, whose life is a disaster of living in very bad Motels, sleeping in his car, and working odd jobs that even include standing in line for hours for other people to get concert tickets and even hard-to-get popular food.

Arj majored in film and documentary editing, guaranteeing him a difficult career trying to make a living within a field where the opportunity for any job is almost nonexistent. Much of this story is hard to watch, understanding the risk Ansari took in attempting to make squalor and financial desperation funny. Arj lives in run-down Motel rooms and far too often has to sleep in his car; none of this is ever funny.

This movie comes off like a combination of “It’s A Wonderful Life” (1946) and “Trading Places(1983). Keanu Reeves plays the angel in this story, named Gabriel, trying to save the life of Arj, and later his very wealthy friend Jeff, played by Seth Rogan. It turns out that Gabriel tries to teach Arj that his horrible life of no money is still worth living, by swapping the lives of Jeff and Arj, a very similar idea to Trading Places.

The good part of this story is how Ansari demonstrates the huge contrasts between a life of absolutely nothing and another life that has no boundaries. The parts that are off about this story are that it is too erratic, slow, and at times strange – almost as if the screenwriter was trying to make the movie two hours long regardless of the sequences of scenes making enough sense. The character Elena, played by Keke Palmer, works for a Home Depot-like company and tries to start a Union to help the many employees who are not being treated fairly. Her off-and-on again relationship with Arj, at times, seems more like filler to make the film two hours.

Some of the messages and statements in this movie about how unfair life is, and the differences between the lives of people who have everything and those who are on the edge of suicide and despair because they have no money, are brilliant. The best example of this is at the end of this film, with a speech from Jeff, who announces new rules in dealing with the delivery employees of his company when he says, “Enough of us getting rich off the misery of other people”. Another harsh reality of life, when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the main reason is that rich people have no empathy for those who live at the bottom of the world.

This film has numerous excellent messages about good and evil, rich and poor, and despite this, this film is receiving middle-of-the-road, below-average ratings of only 77% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is because of the erratic storytelling and scenes that seem more like filler than advancing the story. My rating is a solid 80% for some of the humor, acting, and the overall message, which is very well conveyed.

The challenge for any franchise like the incredibly action-packed John Wick series is that they must top themselves for each new installment. Considering the fantastic action and special effects in the previous 3 movies(especially the last one), making installment #4 even more amazing had to seem close to impossible to pull off. Due to several new ideas (even including overhead action scenes inside of a building), this 4th movie does surpass the last one. As far as the story, that has never mattered for any of the John Wick movies. Like all of these films, you have to suspend any thought process or common sense because of what happens to John Wick this time around, he should have died about 100 times in this film. To list just some of the injuries Wick endures this time around:

Wick is hit by a car no less than 4 times. He falls from 4 to 5 balconies and lands on the ground or on a car, another 4 times. Wick is shot several times, especially at the end, during a final duel to the death. Wick falls down about 11 flights of stairs about 3 times and never breaks a bone. Wick is shot at probably 1000 times during these 2 hours and 49 minutes (this film does not seem nearly this long), but due to his suit, which is made of advanced body armor – the times he is shot to his body do not injure him. The problem is that the over-the-top dumb logic does not consider that Wick would have to be shot in the head at some point, killing him instantly, but this never happens despite him being vastly outnumbered in almost all the action scenes. Of course, we all realize that this is part of the insanity of this movie franchise, but I do not believe that many of the action scenes have to be this completely crazy. Most of the action should meet somewhere in the middle between crazy off the wall, and trying to follow at least some of the laws of physics and human physiology. There is also a master martial arts character in this movie who has incredible skills, even though he is blind. Another too-way-over the top example.

The main characters in this film return again for the 4th movie, played by Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, and Ian McShane. Unfortunately, only a few days before the opening of this film, Lance Reddick who has appeared in all 4 movies, tragically died at only 60 – due to “natural causes” and his true cause of death has never been revealed.

For moviegoers who hate gratuitous violence, even those fans would have to appreciate the amount of work, planning, and rehearsal it takes to pull off some of the amazing effects in this movie. The design and planning of some of these amazing stunts must not only look believable but also have to make sure that nobody gets hurt or killed. The recent Alec Baldwin tragedy is a recent example of someone who was killed while making a movie. For some of the stunts, especially those showing Wick getting hit by a car and then slammed into another car, and falling down so many stairs – it is hard to believe that even the most experienced top stuntmen in the industry could pull off action scenes this impressive.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for John Wick 4 are a very high 95% and due to the impressive action scenes, just about the best for all 4 movies, I agree with this rating and give this movie an equally high recommendation.