5 Things On My Mind: Visceral 'Weapons', Flat White disappointment, and 'Wick' quotes

It's not easy asking for expensive lattes to be made right or your hockey team to do their jobs, but such is life.

For being a full-blown action film finale to a thrilling high-grossing saga, John Wick: Chapter 4 includes some great dialogue. It’s not just back-and-forth interplay that serves the story and end well, but something that can be applied to any life. The first one involves Ian McShane’s Winston telling this ill-fated friend, Charon (the late Lance Reddick) about Ned Kelly’s last words before they slipped the noose around his neck:

“Such is life.”

In three words, Winston broke down the situation facing his character, as well as others in the film’s story, and he spoke to millions of people dealing with their cozy batch of shit at the moment. Life being a doozy is nothing new, but framing it in such a way is quite noble, especially for a modern day western like JW4. It stuck me with me.

The second line comes a little later in the nearly three-hour movie, when Wick goes to hide out in the Osaka Continental with its own Winston, played by Hiroyuki Sanada. John apologizes for bringing potential violence to Koji’s building and home, to which Sanada’s swordsman deftly replies:

“Friendship means little when it’s convenient.”

That quote applies to my life in many ways right now, as change and new beginnings take shape. People reading this can instantly take a measure of which friends are those friends in their particular life. Friends have an easy role to play when times are good and all they have to be for others is a breath of easy air to take in and distribute back out to others. When the chips are down and you need real friends who give a shit and put things on the line, that’s a true display of friendship. Sacrifices become a part of the picture. I hope you have a couple of those.

All the Wick movies are currently streaming on Hulu, and I highly recommend them. Call it a simple Keanu Reeves prescription, believing in the sanctity of dogs, or just a need to be thrilled and maybe inspired, but I can watch those four films just about any day. Here are a few other things on my mind as Sunday’s participants experience some cool rain on their heads.