Boy Movies #22
I would like to remind you that John Wick is from New Jersey
You’re reading Boy Movies. You get it.
As John Wick once said, “Yeah”
I really like the John Wick movies. They are violent cartoons literally directed by a guy named Chad. I think it’s cool how John Wick is fluent in every language in existence while Keanu Reeves has the unique presence of someone who doesn’t actually speak any language at all — do you know what I mean? (Love him, obviously.) They’re “about” grief (what isn’t?) and how revenge will only ever beget more revenge, but other writers have unpacked those themes better than I could ever hope to. In truth, I have zero critical thoughts about these films; to me they’re just beautifully lit dopamine injections. The John Wick tetralogy whispers sweet nothings into a specific, empty area of my brain that makes me clap and laugh like a tiny baby who hasn’t yet been exposed to the horrors of the world. Over the weekend I saw the latest installment in the franchise, John Wick: Chapter 4, and had a sensational time.
There’s just this thing about them that’s been needling at me for years.
Did you know John Wick is from New Jersey? It’s okay if you don’t remember, but he is. Of course John Wick has many things going on — his dead wife, his dead dog, his guns, his little bangs — but he is also, at the end of the day, a guy from New Jersey. “But,” the subsection of the Boy Movies audience composed entirely of ‘actually’ guys (I don’t think this subsection really exists) are screaming, “He’s originally from Russia, you idiot. You dumb bitch.” Okay, fine, whatever. I don’t wish to dwell on semantics. The fact is that when we meet the titular John Wick in 2014’s John Wick he is driving a car with New Jersey license plates. In the sequel, 2017’s John Wick: Chapter II, he gets into a big brawl with Common on the PATH train. (For readers outside the tristate, the PATH is a cursed vessel that transports people between northern New Jersey and certain areas of New York.) The issue, and I deliver this information regretfully, is that the John Wick films get its New Jersey details wrong.
Look, it’s nice to be recognized. Much like John Wick on the PATH train, I am constantly fighting for my life when I tell people I’m from New Jersey. Connecticut gets to go on existing every single day and we get a bad rap? It’s not right. I appreciate the thought behind whoever decided John Wick should be a Jersey boy. It makes narrative sense, too: Until the series goes almost entirely international in Chapter 4, the John Wicks take place largely in New York City, but at the beginning of the first film, John Wick had retired from his former life as a notorious assassin to be a normal husband. There’s no hope of being a normal husband if you live in New York City — look what just happened to Tom Wambsgans. Being normal means moving to the suburbs of New Jersey, and buying a car, and owning a house with several large windows, and that is what John Wick did. Him being in close proximity to the city is also important to the plot; unlike recent media that is allegedly “set in New Jersey” (I’m talking about Showtime’s Yellowjackets), John Wick’s location gives his story texture. It matters.
Which is what makes the mistakes so notable. The most glaring offense comes early into John Wick, during a scene in which John Wick pumps his own gas at a self-service gas station. Wrong! There are no self-service gas stations in New Jersey, a state where it is illegal to pump your own gas. I understand John Wick exists in a universe where he can be thrown off buildings and pushed down hundreds of stairs and get hit by a dozen cars in very quick succession and live to tell the tale, but the shock of this was almost enough to take me out of the movie. The outrageous lack of proofreading continued in John Wick: Chapter 2: When John Wick and Common are beating each other’s asses on the PATH, an announcement not only claims that the train will be stopping at Canal Street, but subsequently alleges that Broad Street will be the last stop. Girl, no PATH line goes to Canal and the World Trade Center is the last stop. Amateur hour! Who gave them this information?
After that, the films pretty much ignore Jersey entirely. In Chapter 4, New York even fades into the background for Paris, Osaka, Berlin. Chapter 4 is good at creating a sense of place even as it globe-trots (that night club fight scene!), but I mourn for the time when the filmmakers allowed such a big, sprawling story to unfold in a couple of comparatively small locations. As funny as it is to imagine any of these bloodied, beaten characters boarding a commercial airline to Germany, I’ll always fondly look back on the kookiness of John Wick on horseback, galloping through the streets of Brooklyn, right past a Mattress Firm. And I will never, ever forget that John Wick is from New Jersey.
Jeremy Strong x Boy Movies alert
He always gets it.
I reviewed the new season of Succession and wrote about the premiere on TV Guide. Pour one out for that girlie’s ludicrously capacious bag!
There should be a little badge on your profile that says “New Jersey expert”