"John Wick Chapter 2": Killing the Gay Villain but Not the Lesbian Bodyguard

 

Getting this photo of Riccardo Scarmacio was more interesting than watching the movie he starred in.

1. I got the odd spelling of both his first and last names wrong several times.

2. There are a lot of shirtless and bulge pictures of someone called a "Riccardo Scarmacio doppelganger."  I knew that if I posted those, people would howl "It's not really him!  My life is ruined!"

3. The only shirtless picture of him turned out to be a .wept file, which is useless, so I had to go to the original article and do a screen shot.  

Was it worth it?

The movie: John Wick Chapter 2.  Yes, Bob has ordered the entire series for Movie Nights. 

You may recall from last week that John Wick  (Keanu Reeves) was a  retired hitman busily grieving his dead wife.  Then a Russian mafioso killed his dog and stole his car.  So John got revenge by killing him, and on the way, about 30,000 fellow hit men, body guards, and miscellaneous mafiosi, basically anyone with any connection to the Russian mob.

In Chapter 2, John barely has enough time to pick up his car, go home to his new dog, and grieve over his dead wife, when Santino (Ricardo -- see, I still can't spell it right), an Italian mafioso, drops by to ask for a favor.  Not really a favor -- a token, a job impossible to refuse.  He wants John to kill his sister, so he will inherit her seat on the Council of Twelve, the chief governing body of all organized crime in the world.  

John refuses, so Santino blows up his house, and with it the memorabilia of his dead wife. Thankfully, his dog is fine.

John has no choice but to complete the assignment.  He flies to Rome, checks into the hitperson hotel there, and goes shopping for a bulletproof suit (from Luca Mosca) and various firearms coded as wines (if you're actually showing him the gun and describing its features, why bother to pretend that it's a wine?) .  Everyone is delighted to see him: "John, it's been a long time!  Are you working again!"  

Sister is celebrating her inauguration to the Council of Twelve with a giant party with pop legends singing and bishops offering their blessing.  When she retreats to her private dressing room in the catacombs and sends her head bodyguard, Cassian (rap artist Common), away for some crazy reason, John sneaks in and gets the job done surprisingly easily.  Of course, he has to shoot his way out through the catacombs and the party, killing about 300 bodyguards, mafiosi, and miscellaneous bystanders.

But not Cassian, who vows to kill him.

Now John plans to kill Santino to get revenge for his blown-up house and melted dead wife memorabilia.  All of his underworld mentors and "It's been a long time!" buddies advise against it: Santino was following the code, so John has no legitimate grievance against him.  But John won't listen.  So Santino puts out a hit on him (they use a clever 1950s switchboard and old typewriters to put out the advertisements.)

When John gets back to New York, hit men and women of various sizes and shapes attack him, but he kills them all.  He chases Santino through the corridors and exhibits of his museum, killing about 300 of his bodyguards and henchmen; but not Ares (Ruby Rose), his mute genderfluid head of security, who communicates in sign language. (I can understand John being fluent in ASL, Italian, Russian, English, and probably every other language -- he knows everything.  But does Santino really require all of the thugs in his employ to be fluent in ASL?)

In the end John kills Santino in the Continental, the hitperson hotel, where "conducting business" is strictly forbidden.  As a result, he is excommunicated: every hitperson across the world will be coming for him.  Of course, he will kill them all, but that will have to wait for John Wick Chapter 3.

I liked this episode better than the original.  The incessant "It's been a long time!" reunions were annoying -- I counted ten --and there was less beefcake.  But there were also a lot fewer lady parts, far less killing,  and only a few scenes of John grieving for his dead wife.  Besides, Santino is probably gay.  He holds court in a museum, not a strip club, he doesn't appear to have a wife or girlfriend, and he spends no time with ladies in hot tubs. And he hired a genderfluid lesbian for his head of security.