I am a fan of the outlandish in small dosages (must be so, given your author's cranky temperament that needs moment to moment maintenance), yet on a sunshine Hawai'i afternoon, I go there. To occupy a seat in a dark movie theater for viewing a film that I have no interest in takes campy courage, as in why the hell not? Outlandish in three hour segments works, yes? Snag is that nobody warned me John Wick 4 qualifies as far beyond a “small dosage.”

We got beyond extreme, then splash a few sips of steroids infused with Gatorade, and call the experience being hijacked to hyperbolic visuals of wanton violence. I left the Hawai'i beach for this? Some wise ones keep mumbling in my ear that the journey is the destination. Give me some writing space to explain why watching John Wick 4 is only destination. Let's explore the journey that justifies—perhaps—my conclusion.

Viewing movies on a theater screen compares to learning a new language, a visual one: symbols, angles, lights, silence, speaking, costume, geography, timelines, physicality, cultures—and these are basic initial decodings to recognize (understand is too generous) wtf is going on. Staying in my penchant for the outlandish zone, I often go to movies with zero prep. Forget Rotten Tomatoes. No recommendations from any source. Ignoring all print or digital criticism, I am jazzed to walk in blind. And so was my situation on a benign, perhaps more happy than cranky, Saturday afternoon.

Despite my blind spontaneity to see John Wick 4, I quickly realized we had a film about friends, straight male amigos trying to connect. Take the outlandishly talented assassin who is blind as a bat. He has feintly blue blind eyes against white sclera that we see just for a few seconds since he wears dark sunglasses the entire three hours (film might be shorter yet feels like three hours). His name is Caine and one of his best friends is John Wick. Early on the film delves into how can assassins remain friends over the decades? Another character, the octogenarian of the male bunch, laments he was nonplussed on tombstone writing. What should he write for a long term business partner's tombstone when he is shot dead a few minutes into the film's start? He decides on the word friend.

This friend has been shot suddenly by the Marquesas, the same power player who hires Caine to kill John Wick. The movie takes three hours to explore how difficult shooting our friends can be. Perhaps evidence one that we are set for destination rather than journey. Better news is that the Marquesas, an effeminate French guy, hires Caine while serving himself a piece of cake from a very long table of many cakes and then proceeds to eat the delectable stylishly, one delicate bite at a time. I could have sworn I saw a pinkie wag there for a second, but, alas, I have been known to project as I seek earnestly for signs of queer life. (Pinky wags for gay men and pinky rings for lesbian women have been a thang over the decades.)

Where I am not over reading is the scene that reaches back into French history to remind us that abject authoritarian rule destroys potential, what you and I have. Witness the Marquesas standing before Delacroix's painting of Liberte, she holding France's flag as revolution succeeds to overthrow the staid establishment. Marquesas is this and so we learn that you can eat your cake any old way you wish, yet, ultimately, you might not have your cake, in the end. As Marquesas stands before the painting, the beginning of his end is written symbolically via the painting on the wall. Dare I go into cliché and say that Liberte, a warrior woman, defeated the staid male establishment? Why not? Evidence two, then, of destination rather than journey.

To amplify the friendship theme we have family—the kind we are born into and the next generation kind that we create when marrying, our new family, and then family we create through friendship—mostly how queer folks live well. In DNA family mode, Caine's modus operandi stays relentless to protect his daughter. A talented violinist, she enthralls crowds as a street musician. In contrast, the Marquesas appears to have no family being wedded to ruthless power and nobody else. Then we have a character who calls himself Nobody, a shrewd mercenary who saves Wick's life several times as he, too, allies with the powerful chance to earn millions ($35 to be exact) by killing Wick himself. Power begets power. The other John Wick bestie operates an extravagant Continental Osaka hotel in New York. Ultimately he is willing to die for his friend John Wick. Even so, this Japanese businessman relies on family support since his daughter helps the hotel stay profitable.

Some diverse and myriad friendships along the way, some loyalty building within families, and some disastrous story creating, too. For the rest of the movie is violence. Any fatal maiming method you can imagine is visually portrayed: guns, samurai knives, short knives, building throws, car run-ins, necks snapped, jaws pummeled, rifles, and I gloss over so many other death strategies. Covering the basics seems to do the film justice. We do get exquisite at the end when a final duel occurs and regally, one bullet at a time, after the counted pacing and so on, is placed in the ancient dueling guns. At denouement (maybe a stretch for a plot does not quite happen in this movie) we must have 100 or more bodies strewn. Most likely not all will even have a tombstone.

Yet John Wick does speculate what he wishes for on his tombstone: loving husband. Restrain a chuckle I did in a public movie theater (honoring others and all that) when I conjured how a mass assassin might qualify as “loving husband.” Evidence three of the mismatch from journey to destination for if Wick had hoped to earn this tombstone phrase, surely his journey might have included a few hundred less murders. In queer culture, when we go into extreme performance we call this camp and so on the camp-o-meter I award John Wick 4 a perfect score—10 out of 10.

For some dear readers who are still holding on this far into the review, you might guess my suggestion. Go see John Wick 4! I refuse to deny you the sheer maniacal pleasure of so much spectacle. Leaving out 57 (at least) other delightfully, maniacally sheerly violent visual scenes, I am. Picture an all-night dance rave in Berlin as water cascades over historical pilings—while, of course, John Wick pursues his enemy to the brutal, fatal end and plucks the dead man's gold tooth, a key signifier for his next leveling-up bloody body pilings. These things take planning.

One tangent and then a conclusion. In earlier decades of my life, I walked to a massive downtown building in urban San Francisco. A few hundred campily dressed queers lined around the block—Doc Martins for lezbos and pink tutus for faggos (apology for stereotypes)--and inside we packed the dance floor while techno music blared, strobe lights and sweat pouring in our eyes robbed of us sight, and piles of dry ice floated white fog through the air.

After several hours, we stumbled outside to fresh air and shouted, “That was a blast!” And the next common retort was often, “Wait. What just happened? And where am I?” Ditto goes for watching John Wick 4. My eyes needed time to rest while watching the movie, maybe even stop their repetitive flickering to register the next outrageous visual on the screen, and so when I departed the theater I believe I stared at a palm tree—stationary, thank goodness—for a long while. Yet when wind rattled a few fronds, I recall whimpering some and running from the Makalapua Regal movie parking lot. My eyes needed a rest, dammit. I just watched John Wick 4.

High lesbian priestess Alison Bechdel reminds us to remember women. We matter, I suppose. And in John Wick 4 women do not exist beyond caricature for the few that appear at all. Bechdel's film test is do two women talk to each other on a topic other than men—and if we go for gold, and we do, are the female characters given actual names. Again, not happening. I find this problematic. You? True we have a woman's tombstone and hers is Helen, Wick's wife who has the words written “Loving Wife.” Loathe I am to research her backstory, in suspicion that another 100 or 200 hundred bodies will have been killed by her hand, thus earning her final title on this earth, “Loving Wife.”

Going on a journey implies inclusion where all the good ones in your life are recognized—even if annihilatingly focused on destination. After the credits roll for several minutes and the movie theater clears, the last scene occurs—one daughter blinded by seeking revenge wields a knife in a street crowd. She aims to assassinate the blind Caine. Even this brief female cameo resorts to bloody violence.

Sounds like a John Wick movie. Go see for yourself. Maybe I missed something? Could be my cultural blind spots. Still, let's stay optimistic on the tombstone process. For my gravestone, perhaps loved ones can write: She watched John Wick 4 in its entirety and in the movie theater. Probably too chatty, though.