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Let's be clear: the prime appeal of the surprise cinematic success that is the John Wick franchise (the most recent entry this year, John Wick 4, took $US426 million at the box office) has been good ol’ Keanu Reeves. His dedication to learning how to move and fight like someone who really could mow through 80 hapless action movie goons in an unbroken chain of gun-fu, all with a sort of Zen-like efficiency, is what has made each new film a “see it opening night” prospect for action film buffs.
But a secondary layer of intrigue has been part of the fun, too; what’s with this crazy world of assassins? How is it they have this entire hotel to themselves? Why do they all exchange gold coins? What the heck is the “High Table”, if not just an inconvenient piece of kitchen furniture?
Prime’s new spinoff/prequel miniseries The Continental: From the World of John Wick, named (awkwardly) for that New York hotel for assassins that’s a key setting in the films, is shorn of the star power of Reeves - who probably needs to rest his 59-year-old bones after the punishing work of committing so many on-screen murders earlier in the year - so it’s those aspects of the films that it focuses on instead. It’s John Wick, but with the actual John Wick nowhere in sight. How you react to that one-sentence synopsis probably tells you if The Continental might be for you or not, but there is at least a bit of intrigue and style to be found in the whole exercise.
Latching on to the supporting character of Winston, played by Ian McShane in the films, the series takes us back to his younger days in the 1970s, before he was in the “managing a hotel used exclusively by assassins” game and more all about running real estate cons in London, which apparently require a bunch of decade-appropriate celebrity name-dropping. Played by Colin Woodell - who sounds a bit more American than Ian McShane, but channels his dapper vibe - he’s more a lover than a fighter in this period of his life.
Across the Atlantic though, his brother Frankie (Ben Robson) is deep in the Wick-world of that awkward colon-ised show title, living in a scuzzily old-school and mood-setting New York, where a garbage strike is on and the streets are as dirty as the cops. He’s working for the current manager of The Continental Cormac O’Connor, played by - oh, hello - Mel Gibson. How distracting the thoroughly cancelled Mr Gibson’s presence is here will be down to the preferences of the individual viewer, but as he’s been cast in the role of “guy who is a total monster”, any uncomfortable cognitive dissonance caused by one’s impression of him from the real world bleeding over into the viewing experience is perhaps kept to a minimum.
For mysterious reasons of his own though, Frankie is not too happy to be working for Cormac - perhaps he’s heard the tape of that phone call Mel made to his ex-girlfriend - and, in a somewhat botched heist, makes off with a MacGuffin from the hotel’s vault. Here we get our first bit of the sub-Wickian action business that is the series’ primary reason for existing, as he slaughters his way up a stairwell on the way out. And having to live up to the Wick name pays off - it’s not quite at Keanu levels, but a more showstopping action setpiece than you’d get from most TV, which is a continuing feature.
Cormac, none too pleased, promptly pinches Winston from London and sends him out to find Frankie under threat of defenestration, leaving a put-out Winston to make his way through the underworld in reluctant pursuit of his estranged sibling - and the important object he’s made off with (no spoilers). Meanwhile, a detective, KD (Mishel Prada), sick of being told there’s a hotel she just can’t go into, begins poking around. And so we’re off and running.
And I mean look: was anyone clamouring for The Adventures of Young Winston? Probably not. But hey, the basic set-up is as good as any to hang a sort of period crime/underworld piece on, and the details are a big part of the fun. The show’s New York truly feels like a grungy, dangerous world, all decrepit apartments, wide-lapelled leather and sheepskin jackets, and characters just back from ‘Nam, and a carefully curated soundtrack also sets the mood.
The show has a lot of fun with this dirtbag-’70s feel without really even having to draw on the John Wick mythos, which can even make it feel like a bit of a distraction when someone starts banging on about the High Table or being ‘‘excommunicado’’ (‘‘It’s Latin for: you’re f.....’’, someone helpfully reminds us), or a junior version of the late, great Lance Riddick’s film character Charon shows up so you can go ‘‘Hey look, it’s Charon!’’. The story also suffers prequel-itis, in that we know no matter what, wee Winston's going to survive in order to grow up and somehow become more English.
But we live in the Time of the Tie-in. Those elements are there too, doing their best to draw your eyeballs in the first place. If you’re not into them, just concentrate on the clothes and the fights, and you’ll probably be in for a reasonable time here; if you are, this will definitely scratch that itch until we inevitably get Something Else: From the World of John Wick, Again.
• The first episode of The Continental: From the World of John Wick is now available streaming on Prime Video.