Keanu Reeves Retrospective
His latest action thriller John Wick is released on DVD on 21st September, so what better time to look back at some of our favourite Keanu performances.
7. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Cue air guitars as high school slackers Bill and Ted take charge of a time-travelling phone booth to salvage their seemingly doomed history project and avoid being thrown out of school.
6. My Own Private Idaho
Two best friends living on the streets of Portland as hustlers embark on a journey of self-discovery and find their relationship on the way. The film featured one of the last performances by River Phoenix who tragically died of a drug overdose in 1993.
5. River’s Edge
One of Reeves’ first major roles came in this bleak portrayal of teen alienation. When a group of high school friends discover that one of their peers has killed his girlfriend they choose not to inform the police, opting to protect their friend instead.
The friends’ apparent lack of shock or remorse over what has happened feels even more sinister when you realise the story is based on true events.
4. Speed
This adrenaline-pumping thriller finds Keanu in true action hero form as LA Bomb Squad expert Jack Traven facing the ultimate challenge from crazed extortionist Dennis Hopper: to diffuse a bomb on a passenger-filled bus that will explode if its speed deviates from 50mph. Sandra Bullock’s commute home takes a turn for the worse when she is pressed into service as the bus’s substitute driver.
3. Dracula
Reeves stars as Jonathan Harker alongside a stellar cast in Francis Ford Coppola’s reimagining of Bram Stoker’s gothic horror novel. While Reeves and other cast members drew some flack for their shaky grasp on an English accent, any criticism is more than compensated for by dazzling camerawork, lavish production design and some amazing costumes in a sumptuous, seductive take on this literary classic.
2. The Matrix
This sci-fi classic wowed critics and audiences when it came out, employing the best state-of-the-art visual effects 1999 had to offer as well as some explosive stunts and gravity-defying fight sequences. Reeves plays Thomas A Anderson, a computer programmer who leads a double life by night as a hacker known as Neo. When he is contacted by fellow hacker Morpheus, Neo discovers that the ‘real world’ is far from what he thought it was.
1. John Wick
Keanu kicks ass on an epic scale as he plays John Wick, a former hitman hell-bent on revenge.
After the sudden death of his beloved wife, John Wick receives one last gift from her, a beagle puppy named Daisy, and a note imploring him not to forget how to love.
But John’s mourning is interrupted when his 1969 Boss Mustang catches the eye of sadistic thug Iosef Tarasov. When John refuses to sell the car, Iosef and his henchmen break into his house and steal it, beating John unconscious and leaving Daisy dead. Unwittingly, they have just reawakened one of the most brutal assassins the underworld has ever seen.
John Wick is released on DVD and Bluray on September 21st
