Spoiler Alert. 

Baba Yaga is back. The Iceman cometh once more. The ghost of your nightmares has returned. After the third instalment left him eternally damned, the High Table’s thorn is once again on a roaring rampage of revenge to clear his name and attain that elevated plain of existence assassins call a normal life. 

But what takeaways does ol’ Johnny boy have for us? Bizarrely, when I was watching the movie I felt like it was holding up a mirror to me. Uh huh. Yep. It was like seeing myself on screen. You see, John Wick and I share common ground in that we are both of the assassin ilk. He is the more physical, badass kind. I am of the more, I guess, advertising kind. So be it. 

It’s my astute observation that John Wick looked extremely tired and mentally fatigued; a life of constantly rolling around, leg-locking and committing supreme head shots on the vast hordes of bounty killers takes its toll. And this whole school business of briefs coming in fast and hot like a Ford factory line has me feeling all tired and fatigued like my brother in spirit, the Wick Man. 

Except that I have not, I admit, scored as many head shots, creatively speaking, yet. All in good time, I know. 

Yes, it’s already taxing stuff, this Term 3 hoo-ha. I’d wager only Uncommon Studio and magical circle corporate law firms have to work as hard if not harder than us poor souls of SCA. Brain aches and creative stitches are common occurrences and we’ve still got a couple more laps to go before it’s all over. Mr Wick fought long, hard and brutal to make it thus far. And we will have to do the same. 

I also noted another point of interest about this thrilling action movie: the villain. Marquis Vincent de Gramont. He’s a fine opponent for the main man in question. He’s not only a villain but one of those villains who likes to casually drop deep philosophical adages. One of his humanistic principles was remarkably close to that of another kind of villain we all know and love. Marc Lewis himself. 

‘How you do anything is how you do everything.’ 

Woof. That’s a testament to the power of Marc’s reach if the Marquis from John Wick 4 is citing him. What is most interesting about this is applying it to the two men fighting one another. The Marquis is bent on rising to the top of the assassin underworld, while John Wick wants nothing to do with it. John cannot escape his torment because it’s the only life he’s ever known. The Marquis, on the other hand, imagines himself as a king of the underworld without ever having gotten his own hands dirty. John is the real deal because he gets stuck in. The Marquis is a pretender and therefore is never destined to live up to his self image. [Insert allegorical relevance to advertising]. How you do anything is how you do everything. Bosh. 

@frederik_smidth